Unbreakable
by Roadrunnerz
Summary: This is an Alex and Dimitri story. It takes place before Anna's arrival after Alex goes missing from the party on Ryan's yacht
1. Chapter 1

**Unbreakable**:

_Ch__**apter I **_

_Pine Valley, PA_

"I'm sorry Mr.Marick, I'm so very sorry, but all the evidence we have indicates that your wife fell from the yacht last night and subsequently drowned."

The words had repeated themselves in Dimitri's mind, like an echo.

He hadn't wanted to hear them. After all, fate couldn't be this cruel. After everything they had been through; his devastating illness, Alex's terrible past, Charlotte's machinations; they had managed to overcome it all and emerge more in love than ever. And now Lieutenant Frye was telling him that Alex had died of a simple, preventable accident?

"You don't think I'm going to accept that, do you?" Dimitri had questioned.

"A police diver found a bracelet and a pearl necklace in the water, both of which you yourself admitted belong to your wife," Lt. Frye had tried to reason with him.

But Dimitri hadn't wanted to listen to reason. "There could have been a struggle, between her and someone else," he argued. "She could have lost the jewelry that way. _Just because you find some of her belongings in the ocean does not mean she drowned!"_

"Harold, one of the stewards on duty that night, admitted that the deck was slippery that evening due to the light rain. But there is also the blood stain," Frye had reminded him.

"You tell me you found a blood stain on the railing, and that you did genetic testing and you can guarantee me with a hundred percent certainty that the blood was my wife's, yet how does that her blood being on that railing automatically result in her drowning?"

"She could have slipped and hit her head. If she were unconscious when she hit the water, she would have drowned almost instantly. It would have been quick and painless. "

"You give me all these theories about what 'may have happened' and 'could have happened' and yet, you haven't found a body! But you don't have single witness who saw my wife on the deck and yet you expect me to just stand back, accept this and start planning a funeral? If you think that then you don't know me very well!" Dimitri had been furious.

"Mr.Marick," Lt. Frye, had continued, patient and gentle, "We could keep searching the water for your wife, but in all, honesty, the currents could have transported her miles beyond the harbor at this point. If we do find a body, it won't be pleasant sight."

"Go away. I don't want to hear this!"

"Mr.Marick I…"

"Please leave, Lieutenant." Dimitri had not been able to look at him any longer.

It had been two weeks since that conversation, and little had changed. There was no news from the police. Dimitri now spent most of his time waiting by the phone in the hunting lodge. He slept very little and ate even less. The frustration of being unable to do anything weighed heavily on him. He prided himself of being a man of action and now he felt completely and utterly helpless.

He was looking at a picture of her when he heard the door open, and Edmund entered.

"Dimitri?" Edmund was obviously shocked at how much the last two weeks had aged his handsome brother.

"Go away." Dimitri didn't look at him.

"Gillian, Eugenia, Sam and Maddie all loved Alex. We are planning a memorial service and we feel you should be a part of it. We _need_ you to be a part of it."

"Alexandra is not dead."

Edmund hated to see his brother endure so much grief without letting anyone help him.

"You denying the cold, hard evidence that the police found, is not going to make it go away," he reasoned. "Alex would not want you to hold on to something that isn't there. Please, I want you to be there with us tomorrow when we honor her. The love she gave us and generous spirit that touched all of us. Please Dimitri."

Dimitri didn't say anything. Instead he waited patiently until Edmund left, then shook his head in frustration.

_Near Brynn Wydd, Wales _

Charlotte Devane stood next to Justin Black. Black was one of her top agents and one of the few men she trusted implicitly.

Then she turned to the sleeping form of her daughter on the bed.

"She's going to wake up soon," Black told her. "It will be good to have her back, but getting her to comply with us is going to be a challenge."

Charlotte smiled. "That's alright. I've never been one to back down from a challenge. Alex will come to appreciate her situation. I need her talents and she owes me. It's that simple. She had enough time to live her life as she pleased."

Charlotte heard Alex groan. Her daughter groggily opened her eyes.

"Well hello Sasha. Welcome home darling."


	2. Chapter 2

_**Chapter II**_

_Wildwind Chapel, Pine Valley, PA _

The chapel at Wildwind was quiet when Dimitri entered. Quiet except for the November wind that was howling outside and the muffled sounds of six people huddled close together to keep warm, inside. Like most stone buildings, it offered neither warmth nor comfort. Ryan and Gillian shared a pew near the front, as did Edmund and his two children, Sam and little Maddie, and then there was Eugenia.

Dimitri watched as Maddie made her way onto Eugenia's lap.

Edmund got up and led Dimitri to a pew. "I'm glad you came."

Dimitri nodded in silence and sat down.

Edmund cleared his throat and began to speak. "We're gathered here today in a place where the Marick family has come for many generations, to baptize their children, to marry their sons and daughters and to bury their dead. Today we are here to celebrate a life who touched us all, and whose end came too soon…much too soon. Alexandra Marick was an exceptional woman, who entered our lives unexpectedly and left them changed for the better. She saved my brother's life not only because she was a brilliant healer, but because she loved him and fought for him with everything she had."

Edmund's voice began to choke.

"Alex and Dimitri were soul mates. The kind you read about in novels and watch in films. Two people whose love and respect for one another inspired all those around them. And for the brief time that she was part of my life, she showed me what it felt like to love again. For that I will be forever grateful."

Gillian noticed his hands tremble as he tried to go on, and she motioned him to sit down, standing up to take his place in front of them.

"Alex was like a big sister to me," she said softly in her Hungarian lilt, "She treated me like family and always stood up for me. I will miss her kindness, her sincerity, and most of all I will miss the love she had for all of us."

Eugenia nudged the children, "Do you want to say anything about your Aunt Alex?"

Sam shook his head shyly but Maddie looked up and announced, "I want Alex to come home because she promised she would finish 'Alice in Wonderland' with me."

Eugenia ran a hand through Maddie's hair, stroking it, "I'm sure she would have loved to sweetheart. She loved you both very much." She turned around to look at Dimitri. "Do you want to add anything, my dear Dimitri?"

Dimitri knew that they expected him to say something, but how could he put into words the way his heart felt when Alex had smiled at him? The way she could wrap her arms around him and make it seem as though the world outside didn't exist. The way her eyes lit up when he entered a room. The pride he felt when he watched her at work, and the complete and utter emptiness that now seemed to engulf him, when he envisioned a life without her.

How could he put all that into words?

"I …I just want to say that I love her very much still, and I always will. She is always with me, and…. she always will be, as long as I live. She was… and _is_ everything to me. _Everything_."

It was all he could bring himself to say and when he finished the unbearable silence hung in the cold air like a blanket, suffocating them, until finally, thankfully, Eugenia began to make her way out with Maddie, still in her arms. Sam and Edmund followed her, and lastly so did Ryan and Gillian. On their way out, they each lit a candle for Alexandra.

Dimitri didn't leave.

He stayed behind. Alone.

_Near Brynn Wydd, Wales _

"Come on sweetheart, wake up. You've slept long enough," Charlotte sat down on her daughter's bed.

Although her vision was blurry, Alex could make out the unmistakable outline of her mother's face.

"_Charlotte?_ What do you want from me? Where am I?" She now saw that her hands were handcuffed.

"One question at a time, my dear. I will let you know what exactly I want from you when you're a little more coherent. After all, what I have to say is rather important. Let's just say for now that I need your services. As to where you are, surely you haven't forgotten Brynn Wydd, your old training ground, have you?"

"I thought you were in prison. I thought this place had burned down."

"Prison, my dear, is for those less important to the British government than myself. If you knew just how valuable my services are to the British Intelligence, to MI5 and SIS among other, more covert, agencies, you would realize that your attempt at putting me in prison was quite ludicrous. As for Brynn Wydd, your last visit did destroy a section of it, yes, but like all stone buildings, it was built to last for centuries, and we rebuilt the damaged area within weeks." Charlotte was amused at her daughters disbelieving looks.

"What makes you think you can kidnap me? My husband will move mountains to come look for me. He'll never give up. And what makes you think I'll do anything for you, least of all work as your spy?" Even as she asked the question, full of a defiance she didn't truly feel, Alex feared what the answer would be: drugs and brainwashing. If she knew only one thing in life, it was that she didn't have the strength to go through that again.

"Oh my dear Sasha, do you really think I would be so simple minded as to bring you here without having a plan to make you comply? To start off, your beloved Dimitri will not look for you any time soon because he thinks you are dead. Secondly, if you don't do as we ask of you, then Dimitri is dead. Beautifully simple, isn't it?"

Alex couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"What's the matter, cat got your tongue? I hope to make myself very clear: Dimitri believes you've drowned. No one is coming to your rescue. Should you decide to rescue yourself, Dimitri dies. It doesn't matter when. Whether you try to flee tomorrow or next month or next year. If you run away, he dies."

Charlotte watched her daughter with delight as her words sunk in and Alexandra's face was full of shock. "I'm going to let you think about your situation for the rest of the night and tomorrow I'll let you know exactly what I need from you."

Alex watched her mother, and the man she was with, leave the room and heard them lock it from outside. She felt numb and cold and completely alone.

'Oh God, please don't let this be real. Please, Dimitri, you have to know I'm not dead. Please help me. Please…" Alex tried to stay calm, but when she thought of what she faced, she was overcome with such fear and dread, that her body shook as the tears poured down her face.


	3. Chapter 3

_**Chapter III **_

_Pine Valley, PA_

It had been a week since the memorial service at the Wildwind Chapel, and Dimitri still couldn't accept that she was gone.

He went riding, out of fear that he would go mad waiting in the hunting lodge. Waiting endlessly for the phone call from Lieutenant Frye that would tell him that everything that happened on the boat that night had been a horrible mistake.

He pushed his horse to go faster, thinking it would clear his mind.

He whipped the reins, "Come on, run! Show me what you can do!"

The horse went faster and the icy cold of the late fall wind chilled Dimitri to his bones. No matter how fast the horse ran, or how cold he became, it didn't numb the pain.

When the ride was over, he led the exhausted horse down to the beach and dismounted.

He remembered someone had told him once that the saddest two words in the English language were "What if?"

_What if I had gone outside to the deck with you that night?_

_What if we had never attended that pointless party?_

_What if there is something else I should be doing, some clue that I should be looking for and I just don't see it?_

_What if_….?

He looked at the sky above him. A sky that was slowly losing its battle to hang on to the light of day.

Dimitri spoke aloud into that sky.

"Help me darling, please help me find you. You can't be dead. You can't be…because, because I never had a chance to say goodbye. I never had a chance to tell you one more time how much I love you. Oh God, please come back to me…"

Then he lost his voice, cupped his face in his hands, and sobbed.

_Brynn Wydd, Wales _

Charlotte was able to follow her daughter's every movement from the comfort of her own office, thanks to a hidden camera that scanned the entire room where Alex was held prisoner.

Justin Black entered her office, just as Charlotte watched Alex sleep.

"What's wrong with her?" she asked Black. "Alex threw up twice this morning? We're not giving her any drugs. Why would she be ill?"

Justin shrugged. "Maybe it's the jet lag, or the after effects of the sedatives, who knows. I imagine you are going to see her today."

Charlotte nodded, "Yes, I will. I have several other things to take care of first. In the meantime, I want you to make sure nothing is wrong with her."

"Would you like me to call a doctor?"

"No. Not yet. Just leave her be. Stay in the control room and keep an eye on her via the cameras and let me know if anything changes."

"Of course Ma'am."

Charlotte got up and left the office, her mind on the meeting with Prime Minister Blair this afternoon. She hated these last minute, high-priority meetings. Aside from filling her property with Secret Service agents, which was always a nuisance, calls from the PM always made her feel as though she was at the beck and call of a higher authority, something which did not suit her at all.

Earlier that morning, Alex had woken up feeling nauseous and afraid. The handcuffs had caused one of her wrists to start bleeding and she tried, in vain, to position herself in a way that would provide some comfort. At first, she had no recollection of where she was and then she vaguely remembered Charlotte's earlier visit. She tried hard to remember the series of events that had brought her to Brynn Wydd, beginning with the night of Ryan Lavery's party on the yacht in Pine Valley. It was a chilly night, with light rain.

She remembered Dimitri, looking as regal as only he could.

Then she remembered feeling light headed in the warmth of the crowded gallery inside the boat.

"_I'm just going to go outside for some fresh air." _

"_Are you alright?" he had asked her, "Shall I come with you?" _

_She had shrugged him off with a smile, "Don't be silly, I'll be right back. It will give you chance to say hello to Erica alone, so I don't have be to be pleasant with her." _

_He had grinned, "Very clever. Don't be long, or I'll come and hunt you down." _

_The remark had made her laugh, "Is that a threat or a promise?"_

She remembered going out on the deck, and then nothing. She sat up and shook her head. 'That's not it.' She thought to herself, 'There is something else. Something I was going to tell him that night. Something important…"

Suddenly a wave of nausea overcame her and she ran towards the door she desperately hoped was the bathroom. And when she came out, she remembered exactly what it was that she was going to tell him.

"Darling, I'm pregnant."


	4. Chapter 4

_**Chapter IV **_

_Pine Valley Police Headquarters, PA_

Lieutenant Frye was getting exasperated. " I have been assured that Charlotte Devane is indeed in prison. Interpol has guaranteed me that she could not have orchestrated any form of kidnapping from her jail cell."

Dimitri too was getting frustrated with the constant run around he was getting from the Pine Valley police where Charlotte Devane was concerned. " I understood that quite clearly Lieutenant, the first time you said it. All I want from you is the location of the prison so I can see for myself that she is there."

Lieutenant Frye tried to maintain his composure, "And as I explained, the location is undisclosed and will remain that way at the insistence of Scotland Yard. She is in solitary confinement in a maximum-security prison somewhere in the UK, that's all the information that I'm legally able to obtain. Apparently, Charlotte Devane has made her share of enemies over the past three decades and there are numerous parties out there that are quite eager to see her dead, hence the secrecy of her location."

"I'm not going to kill her, I just want to make sure she is where they say she is," Dimitri tried to reason with Frye.

"I'm not going to waste any more of your time or mine, Mr.Marick. If Interpol assures me she's in prison, that's good enough for me." Lieutenant Frye had had enough of the infamous Marick temperament.

"Well it's not good enough for me, dammit!" He pounded his fist onto the wooden table.

Everyone at the police station stopped what they were doing and stared at Dimitri. Frye gave him an icy glare. "I suggest you watch yourself before I put you under arrest for causing a public disturbance."

Dimitri implored him, "Please, I'm begging you…what if it were your wife?"

Lieutenant Frye turned his back to him. "Goodbye, Mr.Marick."

Edmund Grey walked into the police station just as he saw Lieutenant Frye leave.

"What's going on here?"

"Nothing. Absolutely nothing. That's what's going on. Tell me Edmund, if you thought Maria could be alive wouldn't you do everything in your power to find her?"

"I see. This is what this is about." Edmund looked at his brother with sadness. "Just because you decide to come up with far fetched theories about what could have happened, isn't going to make them come true, or Alex come back for that matter."

Dimitri sat down. "Of course you think I'm crazy. Crazy to hope that my wife could be alive."

Edmund tried to put his arms around his brother but Dimitri pushed them off. "No, I don't think you're crazy. I just think you have to let go."

"'Let go', right, of course. I think I'll just go home to the lodge today, and I'll just 'let go'. No problem, little brother, maybe we'll have a game of cards afterwards." Dimitri's voice was bitter.

"Dimitri! You know damn well that's not what I mean. " Edmund looked at him like he didn't know what to say anymore.

Dimitri knew he wasn't being fair, "I'm sorry. That was out of line. I know…I know I've been intolerable lately. I'm sorry, brother. I can't explain it, but I feel that Alex isn't dead. I know it doesn't make any sense but it's what my gut instincts are telling me."

"No." Edmund shook his head, "It's not your gut instincts. It's what you desperately _want_ to believe. The day you realize that, you'll be able to start letting go. But not before then."

"Maybe I don't want to let go."

Dimitri realized that he could not accomplish anything else at the police station, nor could he force his brother to understand. So he got up, and left.

_Wildwind, Pine Valley, PA _

That night when he returned to Wildwind, Edmund picked up the phone and called Erica Kane.

"I have a favor to ask you," he said on the phone, "It's about Dimitri. Ever since Alex died, he's been in terrible shape. Worse than I've ever seen him. It seems there is nothing anyone can do for him. I know it's unfair to ask this of you, but he could really use a friend, and you're the first person thought of."

Dimitri's ex-wife seemed taken aback by the request but there was no hesitation in her answer, "Oh Edmund, of course, of course I'll go and see him. I'm glad you asked. It's the least I could do for him."

"Thank you. I owe you one."

_Brynn Wydd, Wales _

The realization that she was pregnant overwhelmed Alex. She didn't know whether to laugh or cry or maybe both. It was the most incredible blessing in the most horrible of circumstances.

'Why didn't I tell him that night?' she asked herself, 'Now I may never get the chance. Oh God, the just the thought that Dimitri may never know…'

A gamut of emotions ran though her and the tears welled up again.

'Stop it! Pull yourself together! Think. Think fast.' she told herself, 'Charlotte is coming to see me today. I have to think of something. If she finds out, she'll never let me carry this child to term. Oh Lord, I can't let that happen.'

'There has to be a way out of here. But if I escape, I'll kill Dimitri.' She remembered Charlotte's threat, not doubting for a moment that her mother would carry it out.

"_Whether you try to flee tomorrow, or next month or next year. You do, he dies."_

'But if I don't, what happens to our child? There has to be another way. There has to be a way to strike a deal with Charlotte. What do I have that she wants? What could I possibly threaten her with in exchange for my child's life?'

Suddenly an idea occurred to her, and at that very moment, Charlotte entered the room.

"Well hello Sasha. I'm so glad to see you're up and exploring your surroundings. Justin said you were sick earlier. I have to admit you do look a little pale."

"I want to make a deal with you," Alex blurted out.

Charlotte looked at her sickly looking daughter. She was a mess, her wrists and clothes bloodied from the handcuffs. Charlotte wanted to laugh at her audacity. "Really? What makes you think you're in any sort of position to make a deal with me?'

"I'm pregnant."

At those words, Charlotte was genuinely shocked, "What?!"

"You heard me. I'm pregnant, and I want this child to live." Alex made sure that her voice was level, steady and in complete control of her emotions.

Charlotte sat down on the bed. "Oh this is just bloody marvelous."

Alex continued, unfazed by Charlotte's reaction, "I want you to let me carry my child to term. In the meantime, I'll do whatever I have to, within physical reason, to be the master spy or mercenary or assassin or whatever it is you want from me. Once my child is born, my services are yours, as long as you need them, as long as my baby is off limits. Off limits from you, off limits from any blackmail you may think of. Whatever it is you think I can offer you, as a doctor, as a research scientist, as a spy, as your daughter, I don't care. I'll do it, for as long as I live. But whatever concerns my child is entirely under my control. No drugs, no brainwashing. In return what you get is unconditional compliance on my part, as long as my baby is safe."

"Hmm, isn't that interesting. And if I don't agree with your deal?"

Alex stared straight at her, "If you don't agree, I'll kill myself. That way we both lose."

For the second time in less than five minutes, Alex had managed to surprise Charlotte.

"Really? Oh be serious, Sasha. You don't have the nerve or the guts to kill yourself. You're not Anna. Alex is the healer, not the warrior. That's the way it's always been. God's little joke on me for stealing the wrong twin."

"It doesn't take a whole lot of guts to kill yourself when you have nothing to live for," Alex shot back icily. "You took me away from my friends, my work, my home, and the man I love more than life itself, only to use the love I have for him against me. Believe me, mother dear, if I lose this child, nothing will matter to me anymore. It won't be a life worth living."

Charlotte looked as though she was impressed for the first time since Alex had known her. "Well, well… this is quite picture you've painted for us here. My daughter finally working by my side, as long as I let her raise her little brat as she chooses. And the most incredible thing about your idea is that it might actually work. This could be a 'win-win situation', as your American friends like to say."

Alex's heart skipped a beat. The thought that she may have saved her child's future brought her an indescribable sense of momentary relief.

"And if you never see Dimitri again?"

"If that's what it takes to keep him safe."

"Oh you fool," Charlotte told her with disdain. "You really love that man, don't you? I'll tell you what I think, I think you must find yourself awfully clever to come up with this idea, and in a way I suppose you are, because I _will_ go along with you. But bare in mind, when you start to get comfortable in your new role and start to think of killing me to end your troubles. Don't ever forget that you'll also kill your beloved husband in the process."

Charlotte got up, as if ready to leave. "As a symbol of my goodwill and agreement to your plan, I'll send in Justin to undo your handcuffs and bring you some fresh clothes. And tomorrow we'll start to talk about your new living arrangements."

When she was gone and Alex was alone, she noticed that her hands were trembling. 'It's ok' she told. 'Everything's ok, for now. One step at a time, as long as you and your father are safe,' she spoke to her unborn child, 'That's all that matters'

Back in her office, Charlotte informed Justin about what had transpired. "Did you hear that grand deal that my daughter decided to strike with her old mum?"

"I did. I followed your conversation on the camera. You're not seriously going to play along are you?"

"Of course I am. Although, this means she won't be able to do the Prague assignment as she'll be about seven months pregnant or so at the time, you do realize I've just bought her loyalty for the rest of our lives. And once the child is born, we'll have even more leverage against her. More than just Dimitri. After all, who knows how long her undying love for him will last? Romantic love is fleeting, Justin. But a child…a child means a mother's love. And that's something that never dies. For now, go and help her fix herself up. She looks dreadful."

Justin did not know quite what to say, but as always, he complied.

"Of course, Ma'am."

Charlotte was truly pleased with the way the afternoon had gone, even Prime Minister Blair had been less of a pain that she had anticipated. She poured herself a cup of Earl Grey and thought of the endless possibilities that lay ahead.


	5. Chapter 5

_**Chapter V **_

_Five months later _

_Pine Valley, PA_

After his final visit to the Pine Valley Police station, Dimitri had gone home to the hunting lodge and made a decision.

If he could not let go of the pain and loneliness that filled his days, at least he could work through it, in the hope that the constant activity would keep his mind too pre-occupied to think of anything else.

These days he started work before sunrise, in the lodge, on his laptop, and then went down to the office at Wildwind for the remainder of the day, for a host of conference calls, online trading and videoconference meetings. He had begun to weed out the subsidiaries of Marick Inc. that were lagging behind, uninspired in the cozy comfort of their parent company, and, instead, he accumulated various new holdings. Companies that impressed him with their revolutionary approaches to doing business. Companies whose missions weren't just the a gain in capital but a better way of life for those whom they served and employed. His principal investment was a diamond mine in Canada's Northwest Territories. A mine he had chosen not only because it offered a huge potential return but because its owners were committed to sustainable development and to reversing the huge unemployment rate on nearby native reserves.

He also invested in the construction of countless village wells in Central Africa, a newspaper in London, a stage production company in Minnesota and a gas pipeline in Kazakhstan. In addition to multiplying his financial holdings, he strove to make the Andrassy Foundation a world leader of scientific research. It became a non-profit research body for a host of infectious diseases now, not merely ones of neurological origin, as had been its original purpose. He began spending millions on AIDS treatment in South Africa and Southeast Asia, and on research in both the US and Europe.

Dimitri worked seven days a week now. And when he didn't work he rode his horses, jogged, or fenced on the grounds of Wildwind. At night, he collapsed into bed, too exhausted to think or dream, and for that he was grateful.

Surprisingly, the only break in his work-sleep routine was offered by his ex-wife, Erica Kane. At first Dimitri suspected that Edmund had sent her to help him with his grief, and, as he had done with everyone else, he had brushed her off. The only difference between her and everyone else was that Erica Kane was relentless.

Dimitri has no choice but to give her an occasional victory.

So he often joined her for dinner at her countless social functions. Not because he truly wanted to, but because it was easier than it was to argue with the force of nature that was Erica Kane.

This evening was once such concession. She was celebrating the launch of a new line of smear proof lipstick and here he was sitting in an elaborately decorated ballroom listening to her praise the glories of her latest cosmetic must have. After Erica gave a raucous speech on the nearby podium, she returned to the table, hungry for the meal that awaited them.

"Aren't you glad you came tonight, Dimitri? The food is going to be spectacular. The principal dish of each course is sharing its main color theme with one of the twelve brands of lipstick."

Dimitri had to admit he enjoyed watching Erica's unabashed enthusiasm.

"You mean like 'blood red steak with beet soup in a burgundy cherry reduction'?" he asked her.

Erica lifted up the menu to show him, "Yes, dear, something like that, minus the sarcasm. See here, one of the mains is Chilean sea bass covered in a blanket of aubergine dust. 'Aubergine Dust' is the name of lipstick number eight. Then there is the New Zealand rack of lamb in a wild cranberry jus. 'Wild Cranberry' is the name of lipstick number ten. And so forth, for all twelve colors."

Judging from the excited laughter at dozens of tables around the ballroom, Dimitri decided that connecting the product to the dinner was indeed a hit.

And so was Erica Kane. Dressed in an exquisite gown that featured twelve shades of red, Erica looked positively aglow, and Dimitri didn't fail to notice envious glances coming from nearly all women in the ballroom.

When Dimitri finished his arctic char wrapped inside a luscious blueberry crepe, Erica, as she inevitably did at these dinners, asked him to dance with her.

" I'm dreadfully tired tonight Erica, I've been working all day." His refusal was gentle, so as not to hurt her feelings."

But it was too late for that. Gentle or not, it was still a refusal and she was annoyed. "I really shouldn't have to ask you, you know. I accepted your refusal the last few occasion because I know how inconsolable you were, but tonight is my night. Do you know how badly it will look, if the hostess of this gala does not dance the first dance?" she whispered icily to him.

Dimitri hated how easily Erica could make him feel guilty, "Of course, you're right. I'm sorry."

One of the waiters handed Erica a microphone, "Ladies and Gentlemen, now that you've enjoyed the colors and flavors of your meal, I would like to invite all of you to join myself and Count Marick on the dance floor."

The orchestra began to play the opening strains of the Blue Danube. It was a piece Dimitri knew all too well, and he led the waltz easily and gracefully. Erica looked radiant as the colors of her gown spun across the floor. There was an almost complete silence in the ballroom as everyone watched them dance together.

Later, when he was back at the hunting lodge, Dimitri had to admit Erica had done it again. She had created an unforgettable evening for all the prospective buyers who had attended the launch party of the new lipstick. He even managed a smile when he thought of her outrageous menu.

Before retiring for the evening, he checked his phone messages one final time and the last one made him sit down with a frown.

The message was from the newspaper he had bought in London. It was another direct request from the publisher to come to their headquarters, this time for an annual shareholders meeting. Although he had gone on more than a dozen business trips in the last five months, he had always avoided London. Until now, avoiding London has been doable with the aid of conference calls and video conferencing, but this latest message made him realize that it was impossible to avoid one of the largest financial centers in the world forever.

'How can I go to London without you there?' he asked himself.

He feared that everything he had tried so hard to keep at bay would flood him as soon as he set foot in the city. It was the one place in the world that held only beautiful memories.

No sadness. No darkness.

London was where he met Alexandra.

A good friend of his had referred him to her, when all the other specialists were ready to give up on him. "She's different," his friend had told him, "One of the few research scientists who practices at the same time. She has a reputation as being a bit of an outsider. She takes on only a handful of patients, but if she does take you on she'll fight for you."

London was where she Alex took him from the doorstep of death, and brought him back to life. Where they had their first meal together and he had been hungry only for her lips. Where they went riding together and he had been thrilled to discover someone who could ride not only as well as he could, but better. Where she had fallen asleep lying against his shoulders, on a bench in Hyde Park.

Where they fell in love and married.

"How can I possibly go back there without you, my love?" he asked her, as he began to pack his suitcase.

_Brynn Wydd, Wales_.

Lonely. If there was only one word Alex could use to describe her pregnancy that would be it.

Although Charlotte kept her occupied throughout the day, evenings were another matter. When she went home at the end of the night, Alex had no one to talk to and no one to call. No one she could call a friend even knew she was still alive. Sometimes, she walked into the nearby village and attended the local church service in the evening, not because she felt particularly devout, she admittedly never had, but because it gave her the chance to be around others, even if they said little more than 'hello' to her.

As much as she despised Charlotte, Alex had to admit her mother had kept her end of the deal.

Alex demanded to move off the compound at Brynn Wydd and a few days later she was given keys to a tiny two-bedroom cottage a short drive from Brynn Wydd.

At first Alex was shocked at the freedom she had. She could come and go as she pleased, and she was almost certain there were no cameras monitoring her in the cottage. However, as the months passed, she realized she was as much a prisoner as if she were held behind bars.

Charlotte gave Alex two credit cards, both in Charlotte's name, to buy anything she might need. Yet she had no cash, not even handful of pennies to buy candy from the village's produce stores. All the food she needed was brought to her cottage by one of Charlotte's men.

At first, she had been reluctant to eat anything, thinking it could be drugged, afraid, more than anything of losing the one thing she could still hold on to, her memories. But as time went by she realized Charlotte had no reason to drug her food. In fact, if anything if would defeat her purpose, and besides, she had to eat, not for her sake but for the baby's. Every month when Charlotte's cold, clinical physician examined her, he chided Alex for not gaining enough weight during the pregnancy, so she forced herself to eat more.

As if Charlotte's threat of killing Dimitri wasn't enough to keep her from attempting to run away, Alex also had the small problem of lacking any proper identification. She might have made it out of Wales with relative ease but getting further would be tricky. She couldn't rent a car or a hotel room, as Charlotte received daily transaction reports, detailing all purchases made from any agent anywhere in the world that held one of her credit cards, including Alex. Her men would have found her in a day, or less.

And Dimitri would be dead.

Sometimes, when she walked back to the cottage at night, after the church service, she passed by a bright red pay phone. Each time she did, Alex thought about Dimitri.

There were several nights when she went as far as to go inside the old phone booth, and began to dial his number. Stealing the necessary coins, to make the call without a credit card had been easy enough. 'Just one call,' she told herself, 'I'll explain to him that he can't come and look for me. I just have to let him know I'm ok.'

But she stopped herself each time she went so far as to dial the number, knowing very well that Dimitri would never accept a call like that. He wouldn't think twice about tracking her down and trying to find her, even if it meant risking and losing his life. If he knew she was alive Dimitri would move mountains to find her, to hell with his own safety.

It was a risk Alex was not willing to take.

She loved him too much for that.

During the day, Alex was constantly occupied, and she developed a healthy respect for the monstrous organization that her mother had created. She also came to discover that Brynn Wydd had very little to do with espionage. It was, in reality, a training ground for international assassins.

Officially, Her Majesty's Government did not know of Brynn Wydd's existence. Unofficially, Charlotte's agents were in high demand not only by the British government but by most major NATO members, including the United States. Brynn Wydd was a valuable resource whenever they desperately needed to get rid of someone, without dirtying their own hands in the process.

Charlotte's agents were impeccably trained and belonged to no national intelligence service. They traveled under false identities and used the passports of small nations or city states that carried no weight in the global political spectrum, such as San Marino, Andorra, Switzerland, Liechtenstein or Luxembourg. If they were caught, no one claimed their bodies and no one knew of their existence, and most importantly, no one knew who had hired them. On their death certificates, they were simply listed as rogue mercenaries.

Charlotte's agents had killed Middle Eastern terrorists for Presidents Reagan and Chirac, Chinese spies for Clinton, Russian scientists for Bush and Chancellor Kohl, IRA leaders for Prime Minister Major. The list went on. For the services of her assassins, Charlotte Devane was paid handsomely and she was allowed to pursue her activities without any legal repercussions. In turn, the agents she trained, once they had finished their tasks, were in high demand in the armies and intelligence services of their homelands.

Alex also discovered why Charlotte needed her, of all people, after all these years. It was because of her background as a doctor and scientist. Training someone in superior marksmanship and martial arts could be done in a matter of months. Finding someone who could mingle with stem-cell researchers at a medical conference was more difficult, as it required an actual scientist rather than merely a good actor.

At first Alex wondered who in the world of science could possibly be on the hit list of a national government in the western world, until she found out about countless top secret research projects that including human cloning and biochemical weapons.

Projects that other nations were willing to kill to prevent from ever realizing their goals.

And thanks to Charlotte Devane and Brynn Wydd, there were highly skilled agents available to do the killing.

Alex now spent her days relearning how to be one of Charlotte's top agents.

She spent hours improving her Russian language skills and doing infinitely repetitive target practice with the latest weaponry, some of which she now had to learn to assemble and disassemble herself. She practiced as much self-defense as her pregnancy allowed. She pored over countless scientific journals, some of which covered areas of study that were as foreign to her as they would have been to a truck driver.

It was while she was reading one such publication in the gothic study hall at Brynn Wydd, that Alex saw Charlotte coming to approach her.

"Sasha, my dear. I thought I would come by to see how things are progressing. Justin tells me you're not being very social with any of the other agents."

Alex shrugged and took off her glasses, stifling a yawn. She was always so tired these days. "It seems being your daughter has given everyone an instant reason to stay away from me. I don't know if it's out of respect, fear of repercussions, or simple loathing for having taken someone else's place as the teacher's pet."

"Oh Sasha, you're always so dramatic, just like your poor father once was. Maybe it's because you refuse to live on the grounds at Brynn Wydd, or the fact that you're the only pregnant woman who has ever trained here. People fear what they don't know, you know that."

Alex tried to change the topic, "I'm due in less than two months. I need to find a nanny, and I have to shop for things for the baby. I need clothing, a crib, a stroller, I've got nothing right now."

"Of course. I'll have Justin drive you to Swansea."

"No." Alex shook her head, "I want to go to London, and I want to go alone."

Charlotte looked at her daughter, amused. "Fine. You can go to London. I'll have Justin meet you at the cottage at 8am tomorrow with a van. The two of you can spend the night there if need be. It's a long drive."

"Fine." Alex put her glasses back on and went back to her article on nucleic abnormalities in chimera cells.

From the corner of her eye, Alex caught Charlotte watching her, annoyed at being ignored, before she finally left without a word.

_London, England. _

Alex and Justin hardly spoke during their entire drive from Wales to London. Although Alex couldn't quite explain why she felt the way she did, but she sensed that the hostility Justin Black felt for her ran deeper than the usual cold shoulder she got from most of Charlotte's other agents. Whatever the reason behind it was, Alex didn't care to explore it then and there. Thankfully, she had gotten very good at ignoring the world around her, and today that world included Justin Black.

Alex was in surprisingly good spirits at the thought of buying everything she needed for her unborn child. She knew exactly which shops she wanted to go to and she directed Justin accordingly.

They went to Mothercare on Oxford Street, where they bought everything from wallpaper to a crib and stroller and blankets and baby bottles, and then to Humla at St.Christopher's Place, where they bought knitwear to keep the baby warm during the cold, wet, Welsh winter nights. Lastly, they went to Paul Smith for Children at Covent Garden, where Alex bought dozens of baby outfits that would be suitable and adorable regardless of the child's gender.

Justin was disgusted at how easily Alex spent thousands of dollars of Charlotte's money. His loyalty to her ran so deep; it bothered him to see anyone take advantage of her.

"Could you maybe stop frowning for a few minutes?" Alex was beginning to get annoyed with Justin's obvious disgust. "These shopkeepers think we're the parents, you know. They've probably never seen such a miserable father-to- be."

"Why in the world does one child need all these things?"

Alex stopped him in his tracks. "I'll tell you why, you miserable lackey. This child has no one in the world except for me. No father, no grandparents, no family, just his mother. You can rest assured that I'm going to give this child the love of a dozen people and I will spoil this baby in whichever way I can."

Her answer marked the end of any future conversations between the two of them. The next day he dropped off Alex at the agency that provided live-in nannies.

Finding a live-in nanny was not nearly as easy as shopping for the baby's clothes, Alex discovered. She had spoken with dozens of women over the phone from Wales and most of them balked at the thought of living in a remote cottage in the Welsh countryside. Those that did consider agreeing to it, did it under the condition that they would only sign a short-term contract.

"What about this one?" Alex asked the lady in the agency, pointing to the portfolio of a 20-year-old Swiss girl.

"Oh, she's actually no longer represented by this agency. She came to London for two weeks and went back to her mountain village in Switzerland shortly afterward. She couldn't take the chaos and craziness of London."

"Her credentials are great," Alex remarked, "And she wouldn't have to live in London if she worked for me."

"Well, she really did want to improve her English, and for what it's worth, for the two weeks that they had her, the family she was with absolutely adored her." The lady handed Alex a phone number, "Here…since you are having such a hard time finding someone to meet your conditions, I'll give you Heidi's phone number, even if she no longer works for us. "

So she did, and Alex spent an hour talking to Heidi Nuessli, a young woman with a diploma in early childhood education and a disarming way of speaking English so slowly that she enunciated every syllable of every word. She seemed warm and shy over the phone, a combination that reassured Alex that she had made the right decision when she told the agency worker that she wanted to hire her.

Heidi Nuessli promptly faxed in a one-year contract from Switzerland, and agreed that she would begin living at the cottage near Brynn Wydd, approximately one week before the birth of the baby.

Justin waited impatiently outside the doors of the agency. "What took you so long? We have to get going."

Alex walked over to the driver's side of the car and watched him roll down the window. "Not yet," she told him, "There is one more place I have to go to. I'll see you back here at five o'clock."

"I don't think so!" He started to get out of the car, but she had already hailed a taxi and waved him good-bye.

"Where to?" the taxi driver asked her.

"A restaurant called 'The Stone's End'"

It was the restaurant where she and Dimitri had shared their first meal. When she arrived there, most of the lunch crowd had already left.

"Is it still possible to have a meal?" Alex asked the host.

"Of course," he nodded, "Let me show you to a table."

"Actually, I'd like the corner table. The one between the window and the blue cupboard, if it's not taken."

He looked over to it, "No, that's fine. It looks like someone has reserved it for dinner at five, but until then it's yours." He smiled and helped her hang her jacket.

Alex knew that coming here was probably a bad idea. Aside from further fanning the flames of Justin's wrath, she also knew that just being here, where she and Dimitri had shared such happy times was probably more than she was ready to handle.

But the closeness she felt to him here was worth the heartbreak it caused her. She closed her eyes and remembered their last meal here. She remembered Dimitri laughing, his eyes telling her what he hadn't dared to speak aloud yet, that he was falling in love with her.

A red headed waitress with an Irish accent took her order, and Alex decided to order not her favorite dishes, but Dimitri's.

When she finished the waitress approached her table, "Is there anything else I can get for you?"

"No I'm fine, thank you. Just the bill, please."

"Can I ask you how far along you are?" the waitress with the red hair asked with a curious smile.

Alex returned the woman's smile, "Seven months and a few days."

"The father must be very excited."

Alex nodded, and she felt her voice choke. "Yes, he would…be ecstatic."

The waitress didn't know how to respond to her tears, "I…oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to make you cry."

Alex immediately felt bad for the young woman, "No…it's not your fault. It's me… you know, hormones."

The restaurant manager had watched the exchange Alex heard him grilling the waitress. "What the hell was that? I don't want you discussing things of a personal nature with our patrons. This is a fine dining establishment, not some local brewpub. The only thing I want you discussing with our diners is how fabulous the menu is, is that understood?"

Bothered by the harsh words, Alex got up to defend her, "Please…she didn't do anything wrong!"

But the manager wouldn't have it and insisted on rebating her dessert.

"Don't," Alex told him with icy finality. "Add it to her tip instead."

She left the restaurant without another word.

_Later_

At five o'clock, that same table was occupied again.

When Dimitri Marick sat down at his favorite table at 'The Stone's End', he suddenly felt very close to Alex. More so than he expected to, because he could have sworn he smelled Alex's perfume in the air. It was a rare perfume with a musky, floral scent, one that Dimitri had never heard of before he met Alex.

'The scent is real,' he thought, 'My mind is not playing tricks on me.' He quickly pulled out a photo of Alex and considered asking the waitress if she had seen this woman. 'She's about 5'4, very slim, long brown hair,' he wanted to add, 'and she has an English accent,' until he realized how ridiculous that would sound in London, of all places.

"Stop it." He told himself when the waitress approached. "This is crazy. Alex is gone and the only reason I smell her perfume is because this was our special place. What did I expect?"

The waitress looked at the photo on the table, as though she recognized it.

"Can I ask you something…"the woman started, but then suddenly stopped, as she glanced in the direction of an older man standing near the entrance of the kitchen.

"Sure." Dimitri told her.

"Uh…actually, it's nothing. I was just going to say that the baby potatoes are particularly good at this time of the year."

Dimitri could have sworn he saw something else in the woman's face. Something she wanted to tell him. "Are you sure that's all you wanted to say? Do you…do you recognize this photo?"

The waitress shook her head. "No. I don't."

She was lying, Dimitri could have sworn. Or maybe it was just hopeful thinking. He exhaled. "I'll have the steak. With the baby potatoes."

When he finished the dinner his left her a generous tip, along with his business card.

Then he walked into the night and headed for Hyde Park


	6. Chapter 6

_**Chapter VI**_:

_Two months later _

_Kane Residence, Pine Valley, PA_

Bianca Montgomery sat on the couch snacking on popcorn, as she watched her mother put the finishing touches on her make-up.

"Well, how do I look?" Erica Kane asked her.

It was a question to which her mother already knew the answer. "You look fabulous mom. You always do."

And it was the truth, she did. Erica Kane had a well-honed eye for fashion and aesthetics, and she looked better than most women did half her age. It was a fact that her mother was well aware of.

Bianca sighed, and wondered whether she would ever possess that kind of self-confidence.

"Are you going out with Dimitri again?" Bianca asked her in turn, her lips curling into a mischievous smile.

"He invited me for dinner at Wildwind," Erica answered with a smile that mirrored her daughter's. The truth was Edmund was the one who had invited her, but Erica knew Dimitri would be more than pleased to see her there this evening.

"So, umm…is there something going on that you should tell me about Mom?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Erica replied sheepishly.

"Of course, you do Mom. Are you and Dimitri getting back together?" The prospect excited her. Dimitri Marick had never failed to show both her and mother how much he cared for them, and she couldn't think of anyone better suited to match her mother's temperament. As long as he was ready for her. While her mother might have doubted the depth of love Dimitri had for his late wife, Bianca didn't. Bianca knew that her mother had never liked Alexandra, and that the feeling was probably mutual, but that wouldn't change how Dimitri felt about her.

Erica sat down on the couch next to Bianca, carefully folding her dress under her legs so as not to crease it. She looked at her daughter, "If Dimitri and I were to find our way back to one another, how would you feel about it?"

"Dimitri's great. You know I love him, Mom. But it's been less than a year since Alex died…doesn't he still miss her?"

Erica frowned at the question. "Of course, he still misses her, and it's not as though I'm dating him, sweetheart. But I can't bear to see him miserable either, and Lord knows Alex gave him enough grief while he was married to her. He doesn't need to wallow in grief now."

Bianca looked at her mother's serious face, "So you elected yourself to cheer him up?"

"Well, someone had to. Dimitri has so much vitality. I have never met anyone else in my life that did everything with such passion. But lately he's been a shell of his former self. I want to help him become the old Dimitri again."

"You mean the Dimitri that was in love with you?"

"Bianca!"

"I just don't want to see you get hurt Mom. Whenever I saw him and Alex together I could tell how much in love they were. Maybe he's not ready to be with anyone else yet."

Bianca had always been frank with her opinions and this time she felt particularly strongly that it was what her mother needed to hear. Even if it wasn't what she wanted to hear.

"Alex is dead, darling. Nothing is going to bring her back. Dimitri may be grieving now but nobody mourns forever, and when he does decide to go back to the land of the living, I will be there for him."

Bianca said nothing; instead she looked at her mother pensively.

Erica moved to hug her, "Don't worry, sweetheart. I'm not going to get hurt. I know Dimitri like no one else in this world does. He is the most wonderful, loving man I have ever known. He would never hurt me, he wouldn't know how."

Bianca hoped that was the truth and returned the hug. "Have a good time at Wildwind, Mom, and give Dimitri my love."

"I will, sweetheart, I will."

_Brynn Wydd, Wales _

"_Open your eyes my newborn son,  
See your world has just begun.  
Hush-a-bye, taste the sweetness of your years.  
By and by, we'll all learn the taste of tears'' _

"Push!"

"I can't…I can't anymore."

"Yes you can, push!"

Charlotte's physician, the one that had cared for Alex during the pregnancy, was now obligated to help her through the labor, and it was obvious that is was a task he hated. It had been a long and difficult labor, and he seemed to hate every minute spent in her room.

"Come on, I can see the head. You have to push really hard now."

Alex wanted to kill him. What did he think she had been doing the last 2 hours? She didn't think it was possible for any human being to endure such pain and go on living. She was convinced that everything she knew about human anatomy was false.

"Do I have to do this all by myself or what?" the doctor goaded her.

Alex was soaked in perspiration and delirious with pain but his words renewed both her anger and her strength. In spite of it all, she kept pushing. She pushed until at long last she heard a loud, clear baby's cry.

And when she heard the cry the unbearable exhaustion was suddenly gone, and she wanted nothing else but to hold the baby. Holding the baby was all that mattered. It was the only thing in the world that meant anything.

'Finally', the physician mumbled. Alex saw him clean the baby and cut the umbilical cord. He did it quickly, with his usual clinical efficiency.

Then he set the baby down in the crib and picked up the phone.

"It's done. They're both fine."

"Let me see the baby," Alex demanded.

"Not yet. Be patient." She watched him examine the baby and finally, at long last, handed the child over to her.

"Is it a boy, or a girl?" she asked. The crib was too far away for her to have seen for herself.

"Oh, it's a boy," he said, as though it was an afterthought. "I think I deserve a stiff drink after this mess."

A boy. My son. _Our son_.

Alex looked at the baby cradled next to her in awe.

He was tiny. His eyes were darker than her own and he had a small patch of black hair on his head.

"You look like your father," she told him.

Alex kissed his forehead and closed her eyes.

In that instant her world was perfect. She had never felt as whole and as content as she did in that one moment, holding her son for the very first time.

Alex only vaguely saw Heidi enter the room. She barely felt her take the baby from her arms, before she fell into an exhausted sleep.

When she woke, Charlotte Devane was in the room with her.

"Well, well Sasha. It looks like I have a grandson. I suppose some congratulations are in order. What are you going to call the latest little Devane?"

"He's not a Devane, he's a Marick. And his name is Max. Maximilian Dimitri Marick."

_Wildwind, Pine Valley, PA _

After dinner, Erica and Dimitri left the main house to go for a stroll around the grounds.

Dimitri lit a Monte Cristo cigar and watched the smoke go upward, to the starlit sky.

Erica had draped a mauve pashmina shawl around her shoulders. It was a perfect match for the color of her dress. "It's a gorgeous evening Dimitri, isn't it?"

Dimitri agreed, "It is, and I'm glad you joined us for dinner."

Dimitri vaguely noticed the crescent moon above them, when all of a sudden he stopped dead in his tracks. He moved his hands to his chest.

"Dimitri what is it?" Erica asked him, concerned. "Are you alright?"

He was smiling broadly. He couldn't explain what he felt. His chest was tight and he barely breathe, but the sensation that coursed through his body wasn't alarming. It was exhilarating. It was the feeling of life. "Yes…yes, I'm fine."

Erica wasn't convinced. "What is going on?"

"I can't explain it. I just felt the strangest sensation," he admitted, staring upward into the night sky.

"But what kind of sensation?"

Would Erica understand? Would _anyone_? What he was feeling was madness.

"Promise me you won't laugh."

"Of course not."

Dimitri took his eyes off the darkness above him and looked at her, "I felt that somehow, right now, my life changed. Something happened…somewhere. I don't know how to say this, but I feel like a part of me is alive somewhere else in the world. Somewhere far away."

"Dimitri…is it because you're feeling what I'm feeling?" Her expression wasn't one of concern anymore, but one of hope.

Dimitri was so wrapped up in the incredible sensation; he barely noticed when Erica moved up to kiss him.

_('Open your Eyes', Bergman, 1972)_


	7. Chapter 7

_**Chapter VII **_

_Seven months later _

_Brynn Wydd, Wales_

Heidi was soaked when she came back into the cottage. She had gone to pick a handful of tomatoes when the rain appeared out of nowhere. Suddenly black clouds filled the sky, followed by a torrent of water and then a strong, fierce wind. It was the wind that made the door handle slip out of her hand, slamming the door shut behind her.

"Sorry!" she called out and walked into the living room to see Alex lying on the floor, on her back, holding Max in the air, while singing 'Leaving on a Jet Plane'. The baby shrieked in delight, making Alex laugh.

"Oh look, he is drooling all over your beautiful blouse," Heidi moved to take him from her, but Alex was already up, holding him in her arms. She was quick and agile, something Heidi couldn't say for herself.

"That's ok, we're not expecting company, right, my little Count?" Alex made a face at Max and he started to play with her hair. Then she turned to Heidi, "By the way, your English is getting so good, I'm really impressed."

Heidi blushed. "That is only because of your help."

Alex spent four nights a week teaching her grammar and diction from some local schoolbooks she had bought for her.

"That's not true, and you know it."

Alex seemed to adore her and as much as Heidi relished living in a household where her employer was fast becoming her friend, there were times when it surprised her that the two of them got along so well. Physically they were polar opposites. Heidi was tall and large. In fact, large was perhaps too delicate a word. Most standards would rate her as distinctly overweight. She had a messy head of thick blond, curly hair that no amount of styling could keep under control, whereas Alex, well, Doctor Alexandra Marick looked effortlessly elegant no matter what she wore or did. Even now, with Max's drool on her blouse, Heidi thought she could easily step into a soiree and not look out of place.

She was smart too, that much Heidi could discern just from the articles she caught her reading. Articles whose contents shouldn't even vaguely determine and not because English wasn't her first language.

Not that Heidi thought she wasn't smart. But it certainly wasn't _that_ kind of smart.

Cool, sophisticated Dr. Marick, and plain and simple Heidi, living and raising little Max together as though it was the most natural thing in the world.

At first Heidi had kept a respectful distance from her new employer, addressing her as "Doctor Marick," and doing her job with an unnoticeable efficiency. However, given their complete isolation in the countryside, such formalities soon became ridiculous and Alex seemed to welcome their growing closeness, insisting that she wasn't an employee so much as she was a member of their tiny family.

Their isolation in the green, rolling hills of Wales didn't bother Heidi. She had grown up in a mountain cabin in the Swiss Alps and she knew very well what it felt like to look down to the village lights in the valleys below. Lights that seemed deceptively close, yet in the winter months were often so unreachable, they might as well have been on the moon.

Isolation comforted, rather than bothered her. It made her feel at home, and she was beginning to like the little boy she was taking care of, as much as she liked his mysterious mother.

True, there were endless questions she wanted to ask Alex. Questions that her curiosity desperately wanted answered. But her respect stopped her from asking.

Questions such as why didn't anyone ever visit Alex? Why had she received only one piece of mail during her entire seven-month stint here? Why wasn't it possible to make outside calls from their telephone and why was there only a single line that connected them to Alex's employer? Why didn't Alex seem to have a single friend or relative in the world?

Although she was often gone for the entire day, Alex spent every free moment she did have with Max and Heidi. On the rare days that she didn't head to work, she took Max and Heidi to the village to dine in the local pub, or to the church service. Sometime they even went for hikes along the hillside trails.

Tonight, following their dinner, Heidi cleaned the kitchen and Alex put Max to bed.

Afterwards, Heidi had seen her going to sit outside, watching the summer rain subside from the door of their cottage.

She didn't seem to notice when Heidi sat down next to her.

Heidi handed her a glass of sherry. Alex preferred it over the bitter herbal liqueurs that Heidi had once offered her as an after dinner drink.

"Here, for you."

Heidi saw Alex wipe away an embarrassed tear as she took the glass. "Thank you."

They sat in silence together, until finally the rain stopped and Heidi spoke, "You're so sad sometimes. It breaks my heart."

Alex's eyes were wet and beautiful in the pale light of the moon. "You and Max make me very happy," was all she said.

Heidi saw Alex fingering her exquisite gold and diamond wedding band.   
"Do you miss him? Max's father?" she asked her softly.

Alex took a sip of the sherry and nodded.

There was more she wanted to ask her. So much more. But Alex didn't volunteer, and Heidi wouldn't press her. She had no right.

Maybe she had asked too much already, she thought with regret, as she saw Alex covering her face with her hands, not wanting to show her tears.

Heidi wanted so much to comfort her, but she didn't know where to begin.

Instead she wrapped her large arms around her and let her cry.

_Wildwind, Pine Valley, PA _

Dimitri had just returned home from a five-day trip to Canada's Northwest Territories. The trip had left him exhausted and rejuvenated at the same time. Instead of remaining at the mine's office headquarters in Yellowknife, he had flown four hundred miles north, in a bush plane, to a place called Ekati, where the actual ore extraction was taking place. There he had spent three 17-hour days familiarizing himself with his investment. He had walked the grounds, gotten to know the machinery, the nuances of every ore body in the ground, and as a result the men working on site gained a newfound respect for their employer

Back at Wildwind, Dimitri now looked at himself in a mirror and saw the growing beard and the dark circles under his eyes that stared back at him.

"Don't push too hard," he told himself, "You already cheated death once."

He was about to undress and shower, when a voice greeted him from behind, "Welcome home, darling."

It was Erica, wearing nothing but a rose colored satin negligee.

"Well, this is quite the surprise." Dimitri couldn't help but smile at her audacity.

"I wanted to remind you of where we left off, before you had a sudden need to take off for the Arctic Circle."

Seeing her standing there, in his dimly lit room, wearing next to nothing, did indeed remind him of the last night he spent here with her. It also reminded him why he left for Canada the next day, without a word.

"Erica, I'm not sure this is such a good idea…" he started.

"You didn't seem to mind that night. What wrong Dimitri?" She made a halfhearted effort to cover her negligee, and sat down on the sofa, mildly annoyed at his less than enthusiastic reception.

"I don't regret that we slept together," he lied. "I just don't know if I'm ready for this yet and I care for you too much to hurt you."

It was obviously not what she hoping to hear. "Oh for heaven's sake, Dimitri, we're both adults. We both care deeply for one another, we always have, and we've always been attracted to one another. Tell me how is that wrong?"

Dimitri sat down next to her, "It's not…wrong, and you're right I do care for you a great deal. But I…"

Erica looked at him with knowing eyes and sighed. "I know exactly what it is. Oh darling, you have to let go of Alex. It's been a year and a half. You've mourned her and grieved for her. It's time to let go. Do you really think she would want you to stop living?"

He shook his head. No, Alex wouldn't. It was the truth.

Erica took his hand in hers and kissed it gently. "She would want you to find happiness again, the same way you wanted that for her when you thought you were going to die."

Her words made sense, Dimitri told himself. Erica was right. There was no reason to live in the past; it would not bring Alex back.

Let go. Everyone was always telling him to "let go", but how could he explain that he couldn't let go of something that he didn't think was gone? That he still felt was a part of him?

It wasn't that he couldn't let go. It was that he didn't want to.

Erica's kisses made her way up to his mouth, and Dimitri returned them with a genuine hunger and passion. He might not have wanted to let go, but he was capable of focusing only on his immediate needs. Of shutting out the world around him.

He took Erica into his arms and made love to her in the hunting lodge.

_Brynn Wydd, Wales _

Alex watched two agents practice a unique form of Thai kickboxing in the gymnasium at Brynn Wydd. Both agents were exceptionally good and Alex was so engrossed in watching their duel she barely noticed when Justin Black stepped in front of her.

"That's how well trained Charlotte wants all her agents to be." Justin pointed out.

Alex ignored him.

"You'll never even come close to that level," he reminded her.

"I can live with that, thanks."

Justin loved to rile her. Alex realized that the less annoyed she appeared, the less it would encourage him. Being around him made her feel like she was back in grade school.

"Get off your rear and show me what you can do," he ordered her.

"What do you want with me? Don't you have someone your own size to pick on?"

"Charlotte asked me to help you improve your martial arts technique. She said it leaves much to be desired. It certainly won't improve by sitting on your rear."

Not wanting to start another argument, Alex got up and stood next to him.

He towered over her and, wearing nothing but a t-shirt and white karate pants, she could see every one of his well-trained muscles. Physical fitness was a religion for Justin Black and he loved to show off its results.

Alex decided she would let him show off his skills and be done with it. Hopefully the humiliation wouldn't take too long. Although she was skilled enough to protect herself against the average enemy she faced, Alex knew she was no match for the size, stamina, and expertise of Justin Black.

Charlotte had been right about one thing; Anna was the warrior, not Alex.

Justin began attacking her with some basic martial arts moves, which she fended off easily. As their sparring went on, he started combining kicks with punches, one after the other, relentlessly and Alex fought hard to keep up. Then, finally, in one swift move, he had her on the floor.

He pinned her down hard and Alex conceded defeat. "Okay, you win."

He looked at her in disgust, "You're pathetic." He didn't let go of her, instead pressing down on her neck with his right arm.

She coughed, "Stop it, let go."

He didn't let go, pressing harder instead. His eyes were full of anger and it scared her. This wasn't a game anymore.

"Stop…I can't…breathe." Her lungs ached with the effort it took to get in a hint of air.

"Is that what he told you? Is it?"

Alex had no idea what he was talking about, she could barely croak out a word in reply.

"Guy. Guy Donohue. He was my friend and mentor. He saved my life and you killed him, Alexandra. I hope you haven't forgotten, because I will _never_ let you forget what you did to him!"

Guy Donohue. Alex did remember him. She wouldn't ever forget.

He had been one of Charlotte's agents, sent to kill her, back when Charlotte hadn't yet found a use for her and decided she was better off dead than alive.

"He…tried to…kill me…" Her efforts to speak against his grip caused her to cough up several drops of blood.

"That's right, _you_ should have died, not Guy."

It all made sense now; the barely masked hostility she saw in his eyes every time he looked at her.

His eyes locked with hers. "Don't think I'll ever forget what you did to him and don't think you won't pay for it. Charlotte needs you now, but there will come a time when she won't, and then you will remember what I'm telling you today. And it will be the last thing you'll ever remember."

Alex's vision was beginning to blur from the lack of oxygen, and just as she thought she was about to pass out, Justin let go of her neck and in one quick movement, he grabbed two fingers from her left hand and pushed them back until he heard a crack.

Alex screamed.

Justin stood back up and left her lying on the gym floor, gasping, trying to breathe while clutching her broken fingers in pain and shock.

_Wildwind, Pine Valley, PA _

Dimitri woke up with a jolt, gasping for air. It was as though someone had knocked the wind out of him.

"Hey, what's wrong?" Erica sat up next to him.

"I…I don't know."

Erica smiled slyly, "I didn't think I exhausted you _that_ much."

Dimitri had to make a huge effort to get air into his lungs and he noticed that his left hand was suddenly, inexplicably sore.

"Dimitri?" Erica's expression quickly changed from amusement to concern, "Do you want me to call a doctor?"

He shook his head, coughing, "I'll be alright." He tried to offer her a lop-sided grin. "Maybe I'm allergic to your fragrance. I'll have to sue Enchantment."

"You'll never win." She teased him, seemingly relieved that he was well enough to joke. "But do try."

Dimitri got up and poured himself some water, while Erica remained in bed, watching him.

Slowly, his breathing returned to normal but the pain in his hand persisted. Wanting to get away from Erica's watchful eyes, he went outside to the living room and opened the window to let the cool air in, before lighting the oil lamp that sat on the mantle of the fireplace. He eased himself down on the couch, not wanting to disturb Erica further.

Suddenly, a strong draft that came out of nowhere knocked down the only picture on his cabinet and extinguished the oil lamp.

It was a photo of him and Alex at their wedding.

Dimitri stood to pick it up and as he did the pain in his hand intensified.

It was as though something, or someone, was trying to tell him something. To give him a sign. It was something he desperately needed to know, something that would change his life forever.

Dimitri had mixed feelings whenever these sensations assaulted him. He hated that he couldn't fully understand them, but at the same time he wanted them to continue because they comforted him and gave him a strange, inexplicable hope.


	8. Chapter 8

_**Chapter VIII **_

_Five months later _

_Brynn Wydd, Wales_

It was almost midnight, and Alex was sitting in the living room of the cottage reading the latest portfolio Charlotte had given her. It was the modus operandi of all of Charlotte's agents; they investigated their targets thoroughly before killing them.

Alex checked the time on her Omega watch, and continued reading.

Her target, Dr. Yuri Malenkov, was a Russian molecular biologist who worked out of Murmansk. His medical specialty was everything obscene, grotesque and unimaginable. Alex had seen highly classified photos of bald, emaciated Russian prisoners, some of whom barely looked older than sixteen, and they had made her physically ill. There was a man with a huge lump on his cheek and upon closer examination, Alex had seen that the lump was a human ear, another prisoner had a thick, infected hand that sported eight fingers and another one, Alex couldn't tell whether it was a man or woman, had a severed nose with three nostrils.

'How could anyone do something like this, in the name of science?' Alex asked herself. If anything, the photos would make the task of killing him easier. After looking at the photographs, Alex had wanted to see him dead. Both Malenkov and her previous target, a Russian chemist who had come close to developing a new toxin for use in chemical warfare, were easy targets to loathe.

Still, Alex knew she was horrible at her job.

After killing the Russian chemist, she had been unable to eat or sleep for a week. Then came the nightmares. Nightmares in which her target's face haunted her in every corner and which nearly made her question her sanity in the middle of the night.

She had spent half her life helping people cheat death, and now she was hastening their demise. Killing for a living. It was the ultimate irony.

Had it been only her own life at stake she probably wouldn't have made it to her second target. But every time she thought of what Charlotte would do once she no longer had use for her, Alex reminded herself that there was no other way.

_Charlotte will kill me once she no longer needs me. And where will that leave my son? In her clutches, that's where. _

The only way she could protect Max was to be an asset to Charlotte. As long as Charlotte needed her, Max was safe. The deal she had struck with her mother to save her unborn son had now become a much bigger monster than she had ever envisioned. It had been almost two years since she made the deal and Alex knew it was time to start planning a way to escape it. She had waited sufficiently long to make Charlotte believe that she would no longer try to flee.

Alex heard Heidi get up and turn on the bathroom light, interrupting her thoughts. Heidi went to use the bathroom exactly four times a night, every two hours, nearly on the minute. 'Swiss precision timing', Alex thought with a smirk.

"Are you still working?" Heidi asked her with sleepy eyes, "You should get some sleep, you look tired."

Alex nodded in agreement. "I will. Soon."

It suddenly occurred to her then that her next mission would take her to a molecular biology forum in Geneva. She stopped Heidi when she came back out from the bathroom.

"Hey…how would you like to take a little vacation back home in Switzerland?" Alex asked her, an idea forming in her mind. .

Heidi's eyes were wide open now, "Really, Switzerland? I would love to but I don't want to leave you and Max, I know you said you have to go away in a couple of weeks. Who will look after him?"

Alex closed the portfolio and smiled at Heidi, "It turns out I have to go to Switzerland on business and I just realized you haven't had a vacation since you started working here. I would fly ahead to Geneva, and then you and Max can join me."

Heidi beamed, "Oh that sounds wonderful! I could take Max to meet my family."

"It's a plan then. I'll speak to my boss tomorrow." Alex got up and locked the portfolio in a small safe that Charlotte installed in the cottage. Then she went to check on her sleeping son one last time, before going to bed.

_Pine Valley Inn, Pine Valley, PA _

Dimitri, Erica, and Bianca were seated at the best table in the Pine Valley Inn's fine dining room.

Erica read the new menu with excitement. " I can't believe they managed to snatch up Chef Jean-Charles Montand! Did you know he ran the Russian Tea Room for three years? I think I'm going to try his version of Lobster Thermidor. Shall I order that for you as well, Bianca?" she asked her daughter.

"Mom, I told you I'm a vegetarian now. Do you even know that they boil lobsters alive?" Bianca protested.

"Oh, it's a shellfish, darling. It doesn't feel anything."

"It's a crustacean, and it does have the ability to sense pain," Bianca corrected her.

Dimitri watched the exchange between the two of them with amusement. They were so different in so many ways, yet so alike in others. Erica often told Dimitri that she felt she had nothing in common with her feminist, lesbian and, as of two weeks ago, vegetarian daughter, but she also freely admitted that her daughter had inherited a bull-headed strength in her convictions from no one but herself.

Mother and daughter continued their discussion of animal rights and seeing them made Dimitri remember the last time he and Alex had talked about having children.

"_What do you think if we were to become parents?" she had asked him lazily, lying in his arms one hot afternoon. _

"_You know I would love it. Just think of the amazing kids we would have, with your brains and my good looks." _

_She had been eating a grape and almost choked while laughing in response, "Yeah, but what if they end up with my looks and your brains?" _

"_Heaven forbid. We'll have to put them up for adoption."_

The only other thing he remembered was kissing her. The sweetness of her lips mingling with the juice of the grapes.

The ringing of Erica's cell phone brought Dimitri back to the present. He heard Erica raise her voice on the phone, in obvious frustration. "What is it?" Dimitri asked her after she hung up.

"It's a minor crisis at Enchantment. I'm so sorry but I have to leave you and take care of it."

She got up, and so did Dimitri. He kissed her on the cheek. "No worries, I'll take a rain check."

"Definitely," she agreed with him, and bent down to kiss her daughter before leaving.

"I guess it's just you and me then." Dimitri told Bianca.

Bianca gave him one of her most charming smiles, "That's fine with me, as long as you don't make me eat the steak."

Dimitri smiled back at her, "I wouldn't dream of it, as long as you don't make me eat a salad."

"Deal. Uncle Dimitri, can I ask you something?"

"Of course, always."

"Are you in love with Mom?"

It was an easy question to answer. "I love your Mom very much, and you too. You are two of the most incredible women I've ever met."

Bianca looked at him earnestly, "That's not what I asked you. I know you love us, but are you 'in love' with Mom?"

Dimitri admired Bianca. She had to endure so much in her young life and it had given her a great instinct for detecting half-truths. "You know I would never lie to you Bianca."

"I know. That's why I asked."

"Then don't ask me to answer that question. Not yet."

Her eyes told him she knew exactly what he was trying to tell her. "Ok, I won't." Dimitri knew she loved him too, and, that she, of all people, would appreciate his honesty. "But I will ask you again in the future."

"Fair enough. He nodded in silent agreement, "Let's talk about something else. I'm going to Budapest and Zurich in two weeks, how would you like to come along with me?"

Bianca laughed, "Oh I'd love to but I would also be missing my exams, and Mom would have a fit."

"And how is that different from usual? Sigmund, Bela, and Karol would all love to see you, and I would love to take you around the countryside," Dimitri tried to persuade her.

"And I would love to see them, but I can't. I love you for asking though."

Dimitri saw the waiter approach them, ready to take their orders, "Anytime, Bianca. Anytime."

_Geneva, Switzerland _

Alex sat on a quiet, park bench, along the shores of Lac Leman near downtown Geneva, and, after a short prayer of thanks, she remembered what had brought her here.

A day ago she had met Dr. Ivan Kolchin at the Palais du Congres convention center.

Dr.Kolchin was one of Malenkov's associates. "Dr. Alexandra Devane," she had introduced herself, before she started to flatter him in perfect Russian. "It would mean the world to me if I could spend just a few minutes with you and Dr.Malenkov discussing your views on Illmensee's latest experiments."

He'd been eyeing her in a way that suggested his interest in her wasn't limited to the scientific theories she had to offer him. "The pleasure would be all mine, Dr.Devane you said it was? However, I'm afraid I have terrible news. No one attending the conference is aware of this yet, in fact, I have the task of announcing it at the Gala dinner tonight, but Dr.Malenkov died this morning on the way to the airport in Moscow. It was a terrible accident, both Malenkov and the taxi driver that hit him died on impact."

Alex had to hide her sudden elation and it tested acting skills. "Oh no…I'm so very sorry. What a terrible loss to the scientific community of Murmansk. To the world, really."

Dr.Kolchin had sighed, "It is indeed, I don't know we will recover." He leered at her, "But perhaps after the dinner, you and I could talk alone. About Illmensee, of course."

"Oh, no, I couldn't possibly, not with such upsetting news hanging over us. But, thank you for your offer."

"Perhaps, tomorrow, after Savorini's seminar…?" Kolchin had called after her, but Alex had already made a beeline for the exit of the convention center.

Now that she sat in the park, watching the famous Jet D'Eau in the distance, she realized she'd been given her a rare stroke of good luck. Malenkov was dead, without her needing to kill him. Charlotte would still receive her payment as she took credit for the car accident, and Alex managed to get all of them some much needed time away in Switzerland. Time she could spend without being haunted by her latest dead target.

She didn't know what tomorrow would bring, but today she'd been given a reprieve and Alex felt something she hadn't felt since arriving at Brynn Wydd; relief mixed with joy.

Charlotte had forced both Alex and Heidi to wear a tiny, satellite operated, tracking device that would let her know of their whereabouts at all times, but even that minor nuisance didn't dampen her spirits.

Heidi and Max had flown into Zurich yesterday and would stay in a hotel until Alex was to pick them up and drive them both to Heidi's hometown, a tiny hamlet high up in the mountains in southeast Switzerland, where they would spend a week being spoiled by Heidi's family.

"It's almost like something a normal family would do," Alex thought with a smile. "Vacationing with relatives. Max deserves that, a little bit of normalcy."

Leaving the shores of Lac Leman, Alex walked to the car rental agency where Charlotte had arranged a vehicle for her.

The clerk was about to hand her the keys of the when Alex took a good look at it and shook her head in disappointment. "Excuse me, monsieur, I'd like to exchange that for something a little larger. More comfortable. And also a little faster."

The clerk handed her a list of other models available and Alex didn't take long to choose a silver Mercedes SL 500. She knew Heidi would be more comfortable in that, than in the Opel the clerk had tried to give her and, besides, it would get her back to Max a lot sooner.

"But, Madame, that is considerably more expensive than the Opel."

"That's fine. Where do I sign?"

Normally the journey from Geneva to Zurich took four hours. Alex made it in just under three. She had been to Switzerland often during her days as a medical researcher because so many pharmaceutical giants were based in the small, Alpine country. She felt comfortably familiar with its geography and liked its clean, well-maintained highways. Highways that were designed for speed in spite of the mountainous terrain.

As she drove into Zurich, she thought of Dimitri, and how her love for speed, whether it was on a horse or in a vehicle, had caused more than one argument among them.

"_As long as you're married to me, you're not going to drive any vehicle of ours! Just watching you is going to give me a heart attack," he had told her angrily one night. _

"_I know you like to think you can control everything I do, but I'm not a child, and being your wife hasn't changed that fact. I happen to be an excellent driver, if anyone is going to die behind the wheel it's you, being pushed into a ditch by a speeding Lada because you drive so damn slow!" she had retorted, not giving in to his innate machismo. _

"_I'm not discussing this. I don't want to have to go to the morgue and identify you, just because you can't resist the urge to pass everything in sight." _

_And so it had gone on, and, like most of their arguments, they had ended it in bed, making love. _

_Making Max._

'What I wouldn't give to have another argument with you…'she thought.

Alex smiled at the thought as she approached the hotel where Heidi and Max were staying.

_Budapest, Hungary _

"Are you sure you don't mind me dropping the car in Zurich?" Dimitri asked his cousin Bela for the third time.

"The only thing I mind is you asking me one more time. When you're in Zurich leave the car at the airport. The attendant in long-term parking will take the keys and I'll pick it up when I'm there, ten days from today. He'll probably recognize the license plate," Bela assured him with a grin. "Now go. Drive safely, and don't wait another five months before coming back to see us." He gave him a firm hug and kissed him on the cheeks twice.

Normally Dimitri would have flown to Zurich from Budapest, but for reasons he couldn't explain, he had a sudden urge to drive this time and decided to ask his cousin if he could borrow his black Mercedes. The drive from Hungary to Switzerland was beautiful, stretching from Hungary's rolling flatland to snow covered Alpine peaks.

The drive would give him a chance to finally slow down his hectic pace.

_Zurich, Switzerland _

The next day Heidi, Max and Alex left Zurich and headed southwest.

It was a beautiful day, with brilliant sunshine and clear blue skies.

Alex saw Max's face in the rearview mirror, and, as though he saw her watching him, he gave her a goofy smile, making her laugh. Heidi handed him a toy to keep him occupied in the car seat. "I would like to stop and take some pictures along the way. It's so beautiful outside," she told Alex.

"Sure."

Heidi's happiness together with the sunshine and Malenkov's accident had lifted her spirits and she felt better today than she had in a long time. They traveled for a couple of hours before pulling over at a busy highway rest stop.

Dimitri Marick was on the same highway, traveling in the opposite direction. He too saw the sign for the rest stop and decided to pull over.

Like so many rest stops in Europe, it was an immense building. There was a gas station, a full-service restaurant, take-out snack bar, pick-nick tables and, of course, a grocery store. Both directions of the highway merged over a bridge and led into a single entrance to the rest stop.

Dimitri noticed a silver Mercedes, the exact same model as his own car, cutting off the car in front of him and he shook his head at the impatience of European drivers.

While Alex, Max, and Heidi went inside the building, Dimitri went to fill up his car at the gas station.

"I'll take Max upstairs to the change room, if you need to get some food," Heidi suggested.

"Alright."

Alex went to buy sandwiches, chocolate croissants, fruits, and coffees, and when she was finished, Heidi came back down with Max. Alex handed him a banana, "Look what I got for my little Count. It's your favorite." She looked at Heidi, "I guess I should use the restroom as well."

"Hurry up, I think an Italian tour bus just pulled in," Heidi told her.

As Alex sprinted up the stairs, Dimitri walked through the congested front doors of the building. The building was crowded with vacationers and tourists, and Dimitri didn't notice the little boy that was at his feet and he accidentally knocked a toy car out of the boy's hand.

He bent down to pick it up, and when he came face to face with the boy, Dimitri froze. He had a pair of warm, brown eyes; a head of thick black hair and a lopsided smile that lit up his whole face.

Heidi noticed him staring at Max. "Sir, are you alright?" she asked him in German.

Dimitri was mesmerized the boy. "I'm sorry," he said, "I don't speak German."

Heidi smiled, "That's ok. I speak English too." She said it with a hint of an English accent.

Upstairs at the women's restrooms, Alex waited as two dozen little, old, Italian ladies, mostly dressed in black, stood in front of her, talking loudly. Patience was not Alex's strong suit, and she considered going back downstairs again.

'What's the point,' she told herself, deciding against it. 'You'll just have to wait elsewhere.'

So she waited. Impatiently. Feeling as though she should have been elsewhere.

"Your son is beautiful," Dimitri told the large, blond woman with the crystal clear, blue eyes.

"Thank you," she replied, "He's a sweetheart, but he's not my son. His mom is beautiful too."

Dimitri nodded, "I'm sure she is." He realized he was staring at the boy, and apologized. "I'm sorry, I'm not usually…like this."

"That's okay. Max seems to like you," Heidi reassured him.

"I should go," he put his hands on the boys shoulder, "Good-bye, Max."

The boy's eyes were captivated by him and, with Heidi's help he put down his toy car and waved him bye.

Dimitri walked up to the snack bar, strangely shaken, and bought himself some food before leaving the rest stop.

As he went out the door, Alex sprinted down the stairs. "Wow, for a while I thought I'd have to spend the rest of the day up there."

Heidi grinned at her and looked at Max, "We didn't have to wait, did we? Timing is everything, isn't it?"

Alex picked up Max, "I guess you need to be Swiss to figure that out. Let's go and enjoy the rest of this sunshine."

As they pulled out of the rest stop, Alex noticed a black Mercedes slowing down the exiting traffic. She was about to honk her horn when she saw the Hungarian license plate and she stopped herself.

She saw the car head in the opposite direction of the highway, and smiled as she thought about Dimitri.


	9. Chapter 9

_**Chapter IX **_

_Six months later, _

_Brynn Wydd, Wales _

"_Open your eyes, my growing son  
There is hard work to be done.  
Follow your father to his toil,  
Bend your back and break the soil.  
Who can say what you can sow,  
In bitter sands."_

"He's gone. I can't find him anywhere!" Heidi came barging through the doors of the cottage, loudly and breathlessly, making Alex drop the papers she was reading.

"What…?" Alex saw that Heidi was shaking and crying.

"I looked everywhere, I…even went over the hill where the hiking path is, and I can't find Max anywhere. I just left him for one minute, just for one minute, to get his mittens."

Alex bolted upright, "Heidi, slow down. What are you saying? You lost Max? I just looked out the window a minute ago and he was playing in the snow."

Heidi was still shaking, "He…he was. And then, all of a sudden I couldn't see him anymore. I looked everywhere. Oh Alex, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry…"

"Sh…it's ok. It's not your fault. He couldn't have gone far on his own." She grabbed her winter coat and ran outside with Heidi in tow.

"Max!" They yelled his name and searched the grounds for nearly an hour, before heading back into the cottage, cold and panicked.

Alex's hands were shaking too now and Heidi was inconsolable.

"Oh my god, Alex, we have to call the police. You have to call your employer…use the phone. Tell them to call the police."

Alex shook her head and ran back outside, "Just stay here for now, I think I know who might have him."

Alex jumped into her car, barely taking the time to close the door, before pressing down hard on the gas, steering the car towards the compound at Brynn Wydd.

She stormed into Charlotte's office, ignoring the objection from the guard that stood outside.

"I'm sorry Ms.Devane, I couldn't stop her," he said apologetically as Alex brushed past him.

"That's alright. It's not your fault that my daughter has a unfortunate lack of social graces, in spite of her excellent upbringing." She turned to Alexandra with a disinterested look, "What do you want Sasha? I'm very busy."

"Where's my son?" Alex demanded. Her knees were shaking and she hoped she sounded more forceful than she felt.

"Your son is safe. Justin is taking good care of him."

The thought of that man with her gentle son made Alex shudder. "I suggest you hand him back to me right now, and, if you do, then I _might_ be willing to forget this just happened…"

Charlotte barely glanced at Alex. She seemed more interested in the file folder in front of her.

"You'll get him back when you come back from your assignment in New York," she said calmly.

Alex walked over to Charlotte's desk and ripped the file folder from her hands, "How dare you do this? Max is off limits. That was the deal we made. I've done _everything_ you asked of me. All your dirty, filthy jobs! I've kept my end of the bargain, and now you dare kidnap my son?"

Charlotte finally raised her head to give Alex her undivided attention; "How stupid do you take me for, Sasha? In two days you are going to travel to North America for the first time in almost three years. To New York of all places, which is only a seven-hour drive from Pine Valley. I know you are bidding your time for the perfect moment to escape and to contact Dimitri. You think that after almost three years I've become complacent? You think I don't know that everything you're doing for me is against your will? I needed some sort of insurance that you're going to come back from New York without your husband's private army on your tail."

"What makes you think I would try to run off to Pine Valley, knowing Max is here in Wales?" Alex couldn't believe what she was hearing. Her worst fears were coming true, right in front of her eyes. The control she thought she had was nothing more than an illusion.

"Like I said, when you come back from New York, you can have your little brat back."

Alex was furious, "If you don't hand Max over to me right now, you can forget about me _going_ to New York!"

Charlotte shook her head, as if a tad annoyed. "Well then, it looks like little Max won't be seeing his Mom for a long, long time."

Alex was about to lunge at Charlotte in an attempt to strangle her, but, as if she anticipated the action, Charlotte pulled out a silencer from her drawer, with a speed that impressed Alex.

"Don't even think about it." Still pointing the gun at Alex, she picked up the phone next to her, "Nigel, I want you and Euan to come to my office and remove my daughter, please. Thank you."

Alex looked at her mother and turned around, furious. "Don't worry. That won't be necessary." She left her office, slamming the door behind her, and drove back to the cottage, her hands still shaking.

When she got there, Heidi was still there, her face streaked with tears. "Do you know where he is?"

"I know who has him, yes." Alex sat down at the table and covered her face with her hands.

Heidi didn't understand. "Is…is he ok?"

Alex shook her head, "No. No, he's not ok. The woman I work for has taken him to blackmail me."

It was the first time Alex mentioned anything to Heidi about her work. Alex had always believed that the less she knew, the safer it would be for her. But Heidi was also her only friend. God knows she could use a friend. Someone to confide in.

"What are you going to do?" Heidi asked her, still not understanding. She started to cry again, "What about the drops for his ear infection and what about all his clothes, it's so cold outside…?"

Heidi loved him as though he was her own son and Alex didn't know what to tell her, "I don't know yet, but Ill figure something out. I'll get him back somehow."

"I'm going to go collect his toys outside, in case they bring him back, I could make sure his stuffed cow is on his bed." She was rambling and Alex wanted to put her arms around the young woman and comfort her, but she knew if she did she might lose it and that was something she couldn't afford to do.

When Heidi left Alex picked up a glass that was on the table and threw it against to wall, watching it shatter into a hundred pieces. "Damn you Charlotte!" she cried, "You're going to pay for this, I swear to god." She felt the tears fall down her cheeks now and wiped them away angrily, "If it's the last thing I do, you _will_ pay for this."

Much later that evening, an exhausted Heidi told Alex she was going to try and get some sleep.

"That's a good idea," Alex told her.

"What about you? Is there anything at all I can get for you? Anything Alex…tell me what you need. What I can do."

She shook her head, "No, just promise me you'll try and get some rest."

"You should do the same." Heidi moved to embrace her, "Goodnight."

Alex heard Heidi make one last trip to the bathroom, before heading upstairs. She sat at the table alone, in silence, and remembered the deal she made with Charlotte almost three years ago.

_Once my child is born my services are yours, as long as you need them, as long as my baby is off limits. Off limits from you, off limits from any blackmail you may think of. _

_And if I don't agree with your deal? _

_I'll kill myself._

And now, Charlotte had broken the deal. 'I have to do the same,' Alex realized. 'I have to keep the upper hand where Max is concerned and if I give in to her blackmail now, she will take him, again and again, every time I do anything that remotely displeases her.'

'But Charlotte is smart. She knows I would never contemplate suicide now, not with Max in the picture. Or so she thinks…What if I could somehow prove her wrong?'

There had to be something she could do that would threaten Charlotte into giving Alex control of Max.

'What if I could make it look as though I would kill myself, without actually doing it?' She forced herself to think of options, morbid as they were. 'I should be able to do this. I'm a doctor I know how many pills it takes to kill a person. Then again, so does Charlotte's physician. He would know a half-hearted attempt when he sees one. Think of another way. _Think!'_

She glanced at her Omega watch and remembered Heidi's last visit to the bathroom. In less than two hours, she would be back again.

'What if…?'

An idea suddenly occurred to her.

If she were to cut her wrists and lost sufficient blood to make her lose consciousness, she would have a limited time window in which someone would have to revive her. But thanks to Heidi's well-timed bathroom trips, she could calculate on getting help within minutes after losing consciousness.

As long as Heidi found her in time, the effects of her blood loss would be minimal and Charlotte would be none the wiser, because it would look like the real deal.

'And once she knows I would go through with it, I would have the upper hand again, when it comes to Max. Charlotte needs me and she wouldn't risk losing me over having control of my son. If this works, she would never dare to take Max again.'

Alex sighed. 'Who am I kidding? I don't have the guts to do this, I'm not the strong twin. I never was. Besides, what if something goes wrong, and I do end up killing myself? My son would never forgive me, and rightfully so.'

She wondered where Max was, and whether he was all right. He had been insufferable the past few days; his ear infection had made him cranky and moody. "Justin would have no patience for that. Oh Max, my baby…I'll get you back, I promise," she spoke aloud. Picturing him with Justin, Alex felt the tears well up again. "Please let him be alright…"

She got up to go to the wooden drawer that was in the living room and pulled out the silver Swiss army knife that Heidi's family had given her as a gift when they were there. It had the name 'Alexandra' engraved along its side.

"What would you do, Anna?" she looked into the mirror and asked the sister she had never met. "You probably wouldn't hesitate, you were the doer, not the thinker."

'If I can make Charlotte believe I would kill myself because she didn't honour our deal, then she would never take Max again.'

Alex checked her watch. In an hour and fifteen minutes, give or take a few minutes, Heidi would make her way to the bathroom again. It was a certainty. Heidi's nocturnal habits had not changed since she had been living at the cottage with Alex.

'As long as she finds me within fifteen minutes or so after I pass out, I will be perfectly fine. I will not have lost sufficient blood to kill me,' Alex thought, trying to convince herself.

She pulled open the blade of the army knife and felt its sharpness against her skin.

'I can do this. I'm a doctor. As long as I don't release too much blood too quickly, this will work, and Max will be back here within hours after Charlotte finds out.'

She started the slow walk towards the bathroom. She saw the bottle of brandy in the liquor cabinet and picked it up on the way.

'A little help can't hurt.'

She went to the bathroom and sat down on the toilet seat cover, waiting for the time to pass. It was silent in the cottage and the only sound Alex heard was the howling of the winter wind outside. She drank some brandy and felt it warm her body.

Three glasses later, she checked her watch again. The alcohol was starting to make her feel lightheaded. 'In about twenty minutes Heidi will be here. I'll wait ten more minutes.'

She checked her watch one last time.

'Alright. This is it.'

She moved the blade to her right wrist and began to cut into it. The alcohol had numbed the pain she would have felt, and Alex watched the blood flow into the sink with a clinical eye. 'Good. Not too much, not too little.'

The wound was weakening her right hand and her motor skills, so she cut the other one wrist with considerable difficulty. Again, she watched the flow of blood turn the white sink red.

Slowly, she closed her eyes and felt her knees buckle. She felt herself falling to the ground.

And then she felt nothing at all.

In the room next to the bathroom, Heidi was soundly asleep, snoring softly. In her distress, Heidi had done something that night that she had never done before. She drank a glass of sherry before going to bed to help herself fall asleep. 'Maybe if I can actually sleep tonight, I can be strong for Alex tomorrow,' was what she had muttered to herself when she drank the alcohol.

And so she slept soundly.

_New York City, New York _

Dimitri Marick was sitting in an elegant boardroom the top floor of an office tower on 42nd street, attending a Board of Directors meeting for the Andrassy Foundation, when all of a sudden he began to inexplicably weak and lightheaded.

He had relocated the headquarters of the Andrassy foundation to New York City from Pine Valley only three weeks earlier, in order to reflect its growing international stature and to aid in attracting the top minds in medical research.

Now, as he sat in a room with twelve other men, listening to a progress report from one his researchers, he began to have trouble focusing. The doctor's voice seemed to come from far away and the simple task of lifting his Waterman pen to take the necessary notes seemed to require an enormous amount of effort.

He felt as though his body was shutting down and he was dying.

"I have to get out of this room,' he thought. 'Have to get air.'

He pushed his chair back and with the last strength he had, made himself stand up. "Excuse me gentlemen."

His legs felt as heavy as bricks and he didn't think he would make it to the door.

He barely heard the door close behind him, when he lost all feeling in his limbs and felt himself fall to the ground with a thud. Then he felt nothing at all.

_Brynn Wydd, Wales _

In spite of the sherry, Heidi was eventually forced to get up. Her head pounded fiercely and for once she hated her inability to sleep through a single night.

"I definitely have the weakest bladder in the entire world," she decided.

She opened the bathroom door and the first thing she saw was the half empty bottle of brandy on the counter.

Then she saw Alex, pale as a ghost, lying on the floor, in a giant pool of blood.

Then she screamed.

_('Open your Eyes', Bergman, 1972) _


	10. Chapter 10

_**Chapter X **_

_Brynn Wydd, Wales _

Charlotte Devane was pacing in the bedroom of Alex's cottage.

She was furious.

"I can't believe she actually did this! I want her on a flight to New York city in 48 hours or less," she told Dr. Lewellyn, the same physician that had helped Alex deliver Max and was now in Alex's bedroom fitting her with an intravenous tube while listening to his employer's rage.

"I'm afraid that's just not possible," he replied dryly.

"Why not? You said she woke up a couple of hours ago, that means she'll live doesn't it?"

"She was only lucid for a few seconds before she lost consciousness again. The fact that she is alive at all is no small miracle. That kind of massive blood loss would have killed most people. She should be monitored in a hospital in the event of cardiac arrest," he tried to explain.

"Hospital? What am I paying you for? I don't care what you have to do, I want her on her feet in two days." Charlotte started mumbling to herself, "Maybe if we use the jet, or have her take the Concorde we could give her another day…and buy ourselves a few hours."

Dr.Lewellyn had no genuine care or concern for Alex, but just then he felt a twinge of sympathy for her. For the misery of having been raised by a woman who valued her only for what she could do for her.

The door of the bedroom suddenly opened and Max came running in. His nose was runny and there were food stains on his sweater. He ran up to Alex and jumped on the bed, next to her.

His presence increased Charlotte's ire. "What the hell is that boy doing here?" she demanded and she saw Justin running into the room after Max

"I'm sorry, Ms. Devane. He ran away when I wasn't looking."

Justin tried to grab him but Max was too fast. He was already on the bed and started shaking Alex in an attempt to wake her up.

"Mum…Mum, go up," he begged her frantically.

"Stop it!" Dr.Lewellyn lifted the boy off the bed, and, much to the physician's dismay, he started crying. He saw Alex open her eyes in response to the noise.

"Max?" she whispered, her voice barely audible. Dr.Lewellyn tried to hand the boy to Justin, but Max wriggled himself out of his grasp and jumped back on the bed.

"Mum?" he looked at her, his voice timid and unsure, frightened that his mother was pale and still, and so different from how he was used to seeing her.

Alex tried to hold on to him and saw the thick white bandages around her wrists.

Her arms had no strength and she was unable to grasp him. "Max…my baby," she whispered. At last Justin managed to get a firm hold of the boy.

"Get him out of here!" Charlotte ordered and Justin took him away, indifferent to his screams.

Charlotte looked at Alex and saw her close her eyes again, too weak to protest his abduction this time. She rolled her eyes and turned back to Dr.Lewellyn, "Fine. You have 72 hours. If she is not fit to travel by then, you can consider your employment terminated. Is that understood?"

Charlotte's fits of rage were nothing new to Dr. Lewellyn and he answered her calmly "Of course, Ms.Devane."

_New York City, New York _

As soon as he heard news of his brother's collapse in New York, Edmund Grey flew down to see Dimitri.

When he entered his brother's hospital room, he saw Dimitri standing next to a mirror, fully dressed in one of his custom tailored Zegna suits, adjusting his tie.

"What in the world are you doing?" Edmund demanded, staring at him in disbelief. "Aren't you supposed to be in bed?"

Edmund had to admit that Dimitri looked perfectly fine. In fact, he exuded his customary commanding presence, a natural charisma that had little to do with his actual royal title.

"I'm fine Edmund. I discharged myself this morning."

"You scared us all to death when we heard you collapsed at the your Board of Directors meeting. Are you telling me that was nothing?"

Dimitri smiled at him, "You have to admit I couldn't have picked a better place to faint. I was surrounded by twelve of the best doctors in the world. Seriously, little brother, there is no need for you or anyone else to worry. They did a whole battery of tests and found absolutely nothing wrong with me. I'm in perfect health."

"Men in perfect health don't just pass out in the middle of the day," Edmund retorted. "And frankly, I'm not surprised. You've been keeping an insane schedule for the last three years. When you're not jetting from country to country to oversee your investments, you're attending meetings or galas or god knows what. Have you even had one day off in the last month?"

Dimitri frowned at him, "Look, I appreciate your concern, but I don't need a lecture from you. I'm doing what I'm doing because it's my lifeblood now. It gives me satisfaction to know somewhere on this wretched planet I'm able to make a difference and that I'm not just another millionaire playboy sitting on the Cote D'Azur with his expensive toys. Did you know the Andrassy Foundation helped distribute seven million dollars worth of AIDS medication in central and southern Africa, in the last six months alone? These are people that would be dead, if it were not for the Foundation! Dead or dying, Edmund!"

Edmund looked at his brother with admiration, "Look, you don't have to convince me what you're doing is exceptional. You have the biggest heart I know. But do you ever ask yourself why you're _really_ doing all this? Is it because you're trying to make Alex proud?"

Dimitri met his gaze, taking his time to answer. "Edmund, if I confide something to you, will you promise to take me seriously?"

Edmund didn't hesitate, "Of course, always."

"Do you think it's possible for two people to share an unbreakable bond? A bond that transcends time, distance and even death."

Edmund gave Dimitri a puzzled look, "I'm not sure what you mean by that."

Dimitri looked past Edmund now and stared into space, "There are times when I feel, without a doubt, that Alex is here with me, that she is still a living part of me."

Edmund shook his head sadly, "Dimitri…"

"No. Let me finish! When I passed out yesterday, I felt that Alex needed me. I felt that she took every ounce of my strength because she needed it to survive. I didn't fight it, Edmund. I gave it to her gladly. If I had wanted to, I could have stopped myself from collapsing, but I didn't because I felt she needed whatever energy, strength, vitality, you name it, whatever I had in me at that moment and I gave it to her because somehow I knew she desperately needed it."

Edmund stared at his handsome brother with obvious concern, not knowing what to say.

Dimitri went on, "It's not the first time Edmund. These 'sensations' have happened to me at least a dozen times over the past three years." He saw Edmund's skeptical look, "I know you must think I'm crazy. It's absurd and makes no sense. I realize all that. But I'm telling you that what I feel is real and sometimes it consumes me. Like it did yesterday."

Edmund tried to be both gentle and as open-minded as he could, "Look, I know you're not crazy Dimi. I know how I felt after I lost Maria. In fact, at one time I even thought I saw her standing in the same room as me. Whatever it is, I understand and I want to help you, I just don't want to see you start to torture yourself into thinking she could still be alive. Alex is gone. It's been almost three years."

"They never found her body, Edmund!"

Edmund frowned and turned away, "_That's_ one discussion I'm not having with you again and I don't think you're doing yourself a favor by entertaining these kind of thoughts." His brother's inability to see reason where Alex's death was concerned frustrated him, most of all because it kept his brother tied to the past. Living there, instead of the present and the future. "Do you really think if Alex were alive all this time she wouldn't have let you know?"

"What if someone is preventing her from telling me?" Dimitri would not let up that easily.

" 'What if, what if…' you could ask yourself 'what if this, what if that,' until you go insane and it's _still _not going to bring Alex back!"

Dimitri tightened his lips, and Edmund nearly regretted his outburst. Because of it, it might be a while before his brother confided in him again. Edmund wanted to curse himself.

"I guess you're right," Dimitri conceded, "Maybe I just want her back so badly, I would entertain whatever crazy notion it takes to give me hope."

"I am right about this, and I'm glad you're starting to see it. There is, however, also something I wanted to tell you Dimitri."

Dimitri seemed glad that the topic had changed. "What is it?"

"I'm going to ask Brooke English to marry me next week," he told him with a broad smile.

Dimitri looked shocked. "Really? I feel so out of touch…I knew you'd been…together a lot." He grinned. "But I had no idea you'd fallen in love again. Am I really so unaware of what's going on in the life of my family. Maybe you're right and I am too wrapped up in my work. Congratulations, little brother." He stood up to embrace Edmund. "I'm very happy for you. That's incredible news."

Edmund was grinning too now, "It is. I'm very happy. And that's all I want for you…that same happiness."

"Don't you worry about me. I'm content, especially now that these fine doctors here have assured me that I'll probably live for another few decades."

"Maybe you could ask Erica Kane to marry you, and we could have a double bash at the Wildwind chapel," Edmund told him, only half-joking.

Dimitri raised his eyebrows.

"It might be just the sort of closure you need," Edmund added.

"I don't know, little brother, Erica's guest list might fill up the entire chapel and I'm not sure Brooke would appreciate that. Besides, I've got a feeling I'm getting too old for marriage."

"We'll see Dimi. We'll see. Never say never where love is concerned."

Edmund picked up his brother's leather sports bag and led him out of the hospital room.

Br_ynn Wydd, Wales _

Almost two days after finding Alex on the floor of the cottage's bathroom, Heidi went to visit her in the bedroom. Alex was asleep and Dr.Lewellyn sat at a desk in the dimly lit room, reading a medical journal.

"Is it alright, if I come in?" Heidi asked the doctor.

He gave her a cold look. "Actually, I could use a break. Stay here and watch her until I come back. I won't be far, if anything happens."

He got up and left.

Heidi sat down on the bed, and watched as Alex woke up.

"Heidi?…Is that you?" Alex could sense her presence before she heard her voice.

Heidi took one of Alex's hands in her own, "Yes, it's me. I'm here."

"Max?" She whispered. "How is he?"

"He's fine. The man that took him left him with me last night. Max was really frightened when he first came back to me, but he's ok now."

Alex looked at Heidi and saw that her face was a mask of hurt, anger, and fear. "Heidi…what about you? Are you okay?"

The Swiss woman shook her head and Alex saw that she was on the verge of tears. "No, Alex. No, I'm not okay. Every time I close my eyes I see you, lying on the floor and there is blood everywhere. So much blood!"

Suddenly the guilt of what she had done to the young woman hit Alex. "Oh Heidi, I'm so sorry you had to see what you saw. I never wanted you to find me like that… not like that."

She knew from what Lewellyn told her about the amount of blood loss, that Heidi had obviously found her much later than Alex had intended.

Heidi looked at her, her expression a mixture of sadness and accusation. "How could you do something like that? You have such a wonderful son! You would leave him all alone in this world without his mother and his father? I don't understand Alex. If things were so unbearable for you, why…why did you never let me help you?"

Alex wanted to tell her everything just then, including the fact that she never meant to kill herself, but was afraid that Lewellyn was still nearby. That he might walk back into the room and overhear everything. "Heidi, what I did…it's not what you think."

"I can't work for you anymore. I'm sorry."

Alex couldn't believe what she was hearing. "Heidi, please. Not now… please. I need you…"

"I love both you and Max, and you are one the kindest person I've ever known. But what I saw, it hurt too much. I cannot even look at you right now. I'm sorry, Alex. I will stay for another two weeks, until you recover or until you find someone new, whichever one comes first."

She stood up to leave the room but Alex tried to stop her. The act accidentally ripped out the IV that Dr.Lewellyn had put on her arm.

"Heidi, please let me explain to you," Alex called after her. She wanted to run after her, but the mere act of standing up already took so much effort, she couldn't fathom taking an actual step.

"I'm so sorry Alex, but I can't do this anymore…" Heidi closed the door behind her.

Alex realized now that she had gotten up too quickly. The room spun around her. She was about to fall to the ground when she felt Dr.Lewellyn's arms underneath hers.

"What in the world are you doing?" he lectured her , "Don't you know better? Are you trying to finish the job, or what?"

He helped her back into the bed. "The next time you rip this out, you can put it back in yourself." He adjusted her IV as roughly as he could without doing any actual damage.

Alex winced in pain. "Where did you learn about patient care, from the lab notes of Hitler's doctors?" she asked him angrily.

It was obvious that Lewellyn hated taking care of her and Alex suspected it was in no small part because he hated her past professional success. "Why would God waste his time putting such a brilliant mind in the body of such an unstable, insignificant woman?" he asked her aloud, as if wanting to confirm her suspicions.

Then he went back to his journal, waiting for her to fall back asleep.

"Get some rest," he snarled under his breath. "You'll need it if I'm going to stick you on a plane to New York in less than 24 hours."


	11. Chapter 11

_**Chapter XI **_

_New York City, New York_

When Concorde flight 117 arrived at New York's JFK International airport, the snow had already been falling for most of the day, covering everything but the runways in an increasingly thick white blanket.

"What is more beautiful than a white December in New York?" the pilot asked his passengers over the PA. "On behalf of myself and the crew of British Airways flight 117 we wish you all a wonderful stay in New York City."

Alex had slept through the entire flight and missed the pilot's sentimental announcement. In fact, one of the flight attendants had to wake her up, as she was still asleep after most passengers had already left the plane's cabin.

The ride from Wales to London in Charlotte's jet had been rough and turbulent and had drained her of the little energy she had.

After getting off the plane, she slowly made her way to the rental car agency. It was pointless for her to have a vehicle in Manhattan, she thought, because she would barely use it. But Charlotte wanted all her agents to have their own means of transportation on hand in the event that they needed a quick getaway.

"I'd like to change that to a Lincoln Town Car," Alex told the rental agent, as he was about to hand her the keys to some type of Ford. Wasting Charlotte's finances gave her only a minimal sense of satisfaction, but satisfaction nonetheless.

The rental agent looked at her with barely masked disdain. Alex tried to picture what it was that he saw when he looked at her. An elegantly dressed woman, in a simple black turtleneck and expensive black cotton coat. She knew she was pale and feverish, and now holding on to the counter for support. Except he would probably think she was high on something, rather than ill. Lots of rich people were.

"You realize of course, that the rate will be considerably higher," he told her, still looking at her with thinly veiled contempt. 'Please don't let him think I'm too high or inebriated to drive or something…' She let go of the counter and straightened her spine, looking him straight in the eyes. "That's fine. Where can I sign?"

He handed her the new set of keys, "Here you are. It's the white Lincoln. Spot number 32. Drive safely."

"Thank you," Alex took the keys and walked to the car. The snow was still falling as Alex made her way out into the parking lot. She got inside and shivered in the cold while waiting for the vehicle to warm up. She was about to pull away when suddenly her vision blurred and she stopped herself.

'I shouldn't drive like this, I may end up killing more people than I have to.' The thought brought a morbid smile to her face.

She leaned her head against the steering wheel, still exhausted and cold. Her head was throbbing and she didn't think she could keep her eyes open much longer. 'I'll just rest a few minutes.'

Alex was not sure how much time had passed when one the same disdainful rental attendants came by knocking loudly on the window of the car. "Ma'am you can't just sit here and idle the engine!"

She gave him an apologetic glance, "Sorry, I'm just leaving." She raced away before he got a chance to change his mind.

Alex thought about her latest assignment as she made her way into the city. This time her target was yet another Russian scientist. Dr. Ivan Ivanisewich. He was a chemical engineer working on a highly lethal and portable form of anthrax to be used in chemical warfare. Some of the documents Charlotte had given her suggested he had already experimented it on Kurds in Iraq.

The method Alex was to use to kill him, ironically enough, was a slow working poison, that she needed to drop into any liquid substance that the doctor would consume at the World Biochemical Symposium at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center over the next eight days. A convention which she too was slated to attend. By the time, Ivanisevich became fatally ill; Alex would already be back in the United Kingdom. All she had to do was turn on the charm and get close enough to him to administer the poison.

'A nice, cozy, post-symposium dinner for two at a local restaurant…'

In spite of the cold, Alex opened her window and turned the radio on high volume, so she would not fall asleep. 'Focus. Think of Max,' she told herself and began to speed up and pass the car in front of her.

_Andrassy Foundation Headquarters, Manhattan _

The rescheduled Board of Directors meeting was about to conclude and Dimitri Marick rose from his chair.

"We have spent the last three hours discussing budget issues, research advancements, pharmaceutical distribution plans and two very exciting projects commencing this spring in Madrid and London. Now allow me to take this time to extend my heartfelt appreciation to the twelve people in this room who have made this a very exciting year for the Andrassy Foundation. Each and every one of you is here because you truly believe in the ideals of this Foundation. I know I can't compete with global pharmaceutical giants in terms of offering you the financial compensation you're deserving of, however I _would_ like to offer you a personal thank you for he upcoming holidays."

Dimitri took out twelve thick envelopes and handed them to the men in the room. They contained a variety of bonuses, dinner certificates for Manhattans finest restaurant, tickets to Broadway musical and sporting events, as well as hand written notes of appreciation from Dimitri himself.

"Thank you for your patience, your hard work and dedication and, lastly, Merry Christmas."

The surprised men gave him a small round of applause and one of them, a kindly, devout old doctor, stood up, "May God give us more men like you. Merry Christmas, Mr.Marick."

He shook their hands, one by one, until they left the room and he found himself alone in the silence of the boardroom.

'What is it about Christmas that takes all the joy and sadness you feel, and magnifies it a hundred times?' he wondered.

He stood up and looked out the window. The streets were filled with masses of humanity, dressed warmly against the cold, most of them laden with parcels and shopping bags.

'I should really get something for Bianca and Sam and Maddie,' he decided, realized only now he'd barely begun his own Christmas shopping. 'And of course, Erica. But what do I buy for the woman that has everything?'

He heard Alex's voice, mocking him, laughing, 'Ah…you'll think of something. After all, you're almost as brilliant as me.'

"Almost," he glanced upward and smiled. It was strange to hear the sound of his voice in the silence of the room. He turned off the lights before leaving the room and closed the door behind him.

_One day later _

_Plaza Hotel, New York City _

When Alex woke up in her hotel room, she momentarily forgot how she had gotten there. She had fallen asleep fully dressed, still wearing the forest green Balenciaga blouse that she had bought on whim because it complemented her long, chestnut colored hair perfectly.

It was only when she sat up and looked in the mirror that she realized it was exactly what she had worn the night before at the Biochemical Symposium at Javits Center. She also vaguely remembered sitting next to Dr. Ivanisevich and pouring the poison into his wine with one swift movement. The transfer of the poison been surprisingly simple and didn't even require a dinner for two. She did it as she sat next to him during a heated conversation with seven other scientists debating the feasibility of Savorini's cloning projects.

'In a few days he will be dead because I killed him.'

The thought brought back her headache with a new intensity. 'Does it matter that he's killed dozens, maybe hundreds, of people with his poisons? Or that, if he is given the chance to continue his research, he'll likely kill dozens, or hundreds, more?'

'Does that justify it?'

'Does anything in my life make sense anymore?' She was on the verge of tears but stopped herself angrily, 'So many tears over the last three years, and what for? They haven't changed anything.' She sat up and stared into the room's gilded mirror, 'Is that what you would do, Anna?' she asked her reflection. 'Cry? I doubt it.'

She made herself get up and a wave of dizziness almost overwhelmed her. The blood loss she suffered only days ago had left her weaker than she had ever been.

"But it was worth it," she told herself, "Charlotte brought back Max the following day and she'll never dare to take him again. Now all I have to do is explain things to Heidi." She had decided she would no longer keep Heidi in the dark about Charlotte. After she told her everything, maybe Heidi would change her mind about leaving. Alex had always believed that keeping Heidi ignorant of Charlotte's machinations was necessary to keep her safe. But now, for the first time in three years, she decided it was time to do something selfish, if it meant she might not lose the one friend she still had in the world.

'I have to eat something,' she realized, not remembering when she last had a full meal. She's been too focused on poisoning Ivanisevich last night to think of eating during their dinner. She was about to dial room service but then decided against it. Instead, she grabbed her coat and left her room, walking towards Fifth Avenue after exiting the Plaza.

She had dinner at a nearby steakhouse and took a couple of the iron tablets Lewellyn had given her. The two combined made her feel considerably better and she walked into FAO Schwarz to find something for Max. An hour later she came out with a huge stuffed turtle and several sets of Lego. Heidi was next, she decided and headed to a specialty boutique that carried only large sizes, to find some exquisite clothing for her only friend. Deciding that she wasn't above blackmail, if that helped her make a decision that didn't involve leaving Wales for Switzerland.

When she left the store it dawned on her that she had just completed all of her Christmas shopping.

'Things are simple when you only have two people to shop for.'

Alex wondered if any of the harried shoppers that surrounded her would envy the simplicity of her shopping list.

On the way back to the Plaza, she passed by the Cartier boutique and its opulent window display caught her eye. She went inside, partly out of curiosity but mostly to flee the cold.

An entire display case near the entrance was devoted to diamonds.

Dimitri always had a particular fondness for diamonds. "They're clear, pure and unbreakable. Not a lot of things in this world can fit that description," Alex remembered him telling her one night.

Alex glanced at her diamond and gold wedding band. It was an exquisite and priceless work of art; consisting of thick white and yellow gold and dozens of tiny, perfect diamonds that ran across it in a diagonal pattern. It was meant to be a wedding and engagement ring, all in one. "Because we never had time to become engaged," Dimitri had reasoned, when she had nearly chocked when she'd first seen it.

'Should I ever decide to sell it I could probably buy a fair size house, Max's college education, and maybe even a thoroughbred horse on the side.' The thought made her grin, knowing she would sooner die than part with it. That, and the Omega watch he had given her, was all she had left of her husband.

"Your ring is absolutely incredible, " an immaculately dressed saleslady remarked, pointing to Alex's wedding band.

"Thank you. So is my husband."

"He must be." The words were half flattery, half envy. "Is there anything I can interest you in?"

"I'm just browsing…"

That didn't deter the saleslady. "Let me show you our latest collection. It's a been a fantastic hit this season." She held up a pair of spectacular light blue diamond earrings. "They're Marick Diamonds, from Canada's Arctic circle. They say all Marick diamonds have an unusual blue hue that you can only see under certain light. Apparently local folklore says that the blue shade is a reminder that they came from an eternally frozen ground."

" Maybe they're blue because they're sad," Alex suggested. She had followed the progress of Marick Industries on the Internet over the last three years, and knew about most of Dimitri's business ventures, including the Ekati Diamond mine, but to see her husband's diamonds for sale in front her was still startling.

The saleslady gave her a strange look, as if unsure what to make of her remark.

"It's a…I'm just kidding," Alex retracted. The last thing she needed was to attract attention for bizarre musings.

The saleslady laughed politely, "Of course."

"Actually…do you have men's model of this watch?" she asked pointing to her own Omega.

"Let me see…it's a few years old, isn't it? I'm not sure if we still carry that specific model." She went to the rear of the counter and started searching, "It looks like you're in luck. I have exactly one men's version left."

"Is it possible to engrave a single Marick diamond onto the watch face?"

"Yes, of course, that's a splendid idea. In fact, it would match the blue hue of the watch."

Alex took off her own watch, "And on the back I'd like you to put the same inscription as I have on mine, '_A love for all time. D_.' but replace the D with an A."

The saleslady smiled, "What a wonderfully romantic Christmas gift. I'm sure your husband will adore it."

Alex nodded, "I'm sure he will. There is only one thing, I have to leave New York tomorrow evening. Are you able to have it ready by tomorrow afternoon? I will gladly pay you any extra charges involved."

"But of course," the saleslady told her, as though it was a silly question. This was Cartier on Fifth Avenue after all.

That evening Alex decided to head out one last time, to Rockefeller Center. 'I should probably stay in and rest,' she thought, knowing she would never let one of her own patients walk around if they were in her condition, 'I guess it's true, doctors really are the worst patients. Or maybe, after coping with months of 24-hour residency shifts, we begin to think we're invincible.'

However, she also knew if she were to stay in her room she would only think of Ivanisewich and his impending death. That sleep wouldn't be an option anyway.

Rockefeller Center was full of skaters, tourists, and lovers. Christmas carols played over the entire square with the help of four large speakers. In the middle stood the enormous Christmas tree, which was probably the most photographed object in Manhattan at this time of year.

"One day I'll take Max here, and we'll go skating together and drink hot chocolate…" she looked up towards the tree's top and suddenly felt lightheaded again.

She barely felt herself falling to the ground, until she was on the ground and a large black man helped her back up. "Ma'am, are you ok? Let me call an ambulance." One of his arms was around Alex and with the other; he began dialing on his cell phone.

Alex grabbed his hand and stopped him. Charlotte would never let her hear the end of it if she had to be admitted to a hospital in New York with all her false identification. "No, that's not necessary. I'm fine."

"Ma'am, I hate to say this but you don't look fine. You just fainted."

"Really, I am fine. I just haven't eaten…and I've had the flu, that's all it is."

He helped her walk to a nearby bench, as others looked on. "At least let me call a cab for you."

Alex shook her head, "No, really, it's fine. I just need to sit down for a while. Thank you for your kindness."

His eyes lingered on hers, as if debating whether to respect her wishes or do what he thought was the right thing to do. "Don't thank me. Just get yourself home safe. And have a merry Christmas."

Alex nodded, "I will." When he left, and when the crowd lost their interest in what had just passed, Alex buried her face in her hands and cried out of sheer exhaustion.

"Oh Dimitri…I'm not strong enough for this anymore. For just one night I want to feel your arms around me, telling me you'll be strong for me. Telling me things will be all right. Just one damn night…"

Lying on the ground next to her, Alex spotted a quarter. It beckoned to her like a sign. There was a payphone adjacent to the bench she was sitting on and, without thinking; she did the one thing she had never done during her three years in Wales.

She began to dial Dimitri's number.

It was a cell phone number that he gave to less than a dozen people in the world. It was the one number where he could be reached at all times.

'I won't say anything, he'll never know it's me. If I can just hear his voice…for a moment. That's all. Just his voice.'

Meanwhile, several blocks from her, Dimitri Marick was trying to decide between a burgundy and a mauve Chanel suit for Erica at Sack's Fifth Avenue. He had felt dizzy since entering the store and he wanted to go back outside, maybe even watch the skaters at Rockefeller Center, but he reminded himself of his need to finish some Christmas shopping.

Then he heard his phone ring.

He picked it up after the second ring, "Hello?"

He heard the distant sounds of Christmas carols and noisy chatter on the other end.

"Hello…is anybody there?"

"_Dimitri?_"

Alex had told herself she wouldn't say a word. But this one had slipped out, against her will.

_Was it possible to convey three years of unspoken love in one word? In one name? _

As soon as the word left her lips, she thought back to Charlotte's threat, _'Whether you try to flee tomorrow, or next month or next year. You do, he dies._'

_You do, he dies._

The words echoed in her mind, terrifying her. Alex covered her mouth with her hand, not trusting herself to remain silent. She couldn't remember ever wanting something as much as she wanted to answer him.

At Saks Fifth Avenue, Dimitri almost dropped the phone at the sound of her voice. "Alex…is that you? Alex!"

There was silence again on the other end.

_You do, he dies._

Alex forced herself to hang up the phone and she felt the burning warmth of her tears falling down her cheeks.

Meanwhile, Dimitri's chest tightened and he struggled to breathe. "Darling if this is you, you have to talk to me! Alex, where are you? Are you all right?"

He heard the click of the receiver on the other end and then silence. In vain, he shouted her name into the phone once more, _"Alex!"_

A salesman came up to him, irritated, "Sir, I'm afraid your conversation is disturbing some of our other clients…"

Dimitri was frantic. "Damn your other clients!"

He dropped the Chanel suits he was holding and ran out of the department store onto crowded Fifth Avenue, thinking, against all logic and reason, that he would somehow find her there, outside. Waiting. Looking for him.

"_Alexandra_!"

He lost track of how many times he called out her name on the street.

A police officer observed him, "Sir, did you lose your child?"

Dimitri shook his head.

"Sir, you're obviously upset about something, maybe you want to take this over to the side."

He started leading him away from the pedestrian crowd but Dimitri brushed him off. "Let go of me, I have to find her."

He half ran, half walked up and down Fifth Avenue for hours until he sat down, exhausted, on a bench near Rockefeller Center. He sat there for an eternity, until his limbs were numb and frozen from the cold. Long after the shops and restaurants had closed, he began to walk towards his hotel wondering if he had imagined the phone, while praying that he hadn't.

The next day Alex left the Plaza, picked up Dimitri's watch on the way to the airport and flew back to London

That same day, Dimitri traced the call on his cell phone, only to find, it came from a payphone mere blocks from where he'd been shopping last night.

"I'm sorry Mr.Marick, short of a miracle, there is absolutely no way of determining who made that call, or why anyone would play such a cruel joke on you and imitate your dead wife's voice," was the only consolation he received from the local telecommunications network supervisor.

He drove to LaGuardia that same afternoon, and returned to Pine Valley.

Alone.


	12. Chapter 12

_**Chapter XII **_

_Five months later _

_Wildwind, Pine Valley, PA_

Wildwind was awash in a sea of flowers. Lilies, tulips, roses, gardenias, freesias, orchids, and countless red and white roses created a sea of color, as far as the eye could see, around the grounds of the gothic estate.

"It looks magnificent," Dimitri told his younger brother.

Edmund wore a classic black tuxedo and looked as happy as Dimitri had ever seen him. "Today is going to be a magnificent day, even the weather gods are playing along."

Edmund had decided to have the wedding ceremony outside, on the grounds of Wildwind rather than inside the cold, stone chapel.

"How are your nerves?" Dimitri asked him.

Edmund held out his hands steadily, "No nerves Dimi. None at all." He smiled, "This seems like the most natural thing in the world. I love Brooke, she's my best friend in the world, and now we're going to spend the rest of our lives together."

"Well, then what's keeping us? Let's get this show on the road and turn you into a married man." Dimitri put his arms around Edmund's shoulder and they headed towards the white tent where the ceremony was being held.

It was a short, yet moving ceremony. Brooke wore a simple beige dress and was obviously radiant with love for her groom. They wrote their own vows, and as they were spoken aloud, Dimitri noticed a few teary eyed faces in the crowd. 'I guess if a Pulitzer prize winner can't write words to move you, who can?' he thought, smiling to himself.

By contrast, the reception that followed was loud and exuberant. Edmund even made Dimitri lead a round of Hungarian folk dances, much to his embarrassment. "You're my best man. You owe me one today," Edmund had told him, laughing.

As much as he enjoyed the festivities, as the day went on Dimitri distanced himself from the crowded tents, and walked alone to a more secluded and forested area of the grounds.

He sat down on a fallen tree trunk and lit a cigar. He heard the din of noise from the reception in the distance and he fingered his wedding band.

"I wish you were here to see this wedding," he spoke aloud. "It's so beautiful. Mind you ours was beautiful too. Not because it was grand and lavish, lord knows it wasn't that, but because I felt like the luckiest man in the world. To cheat death and find you, all in the span of a few months. To discover that you loved me as much as I loved you…"

Dimitri heard a rustling amid the tree branches.

"Darling, what are you doing here all alone?" It was Erica, walking awkwardly over the tree roots in her impossibly high heels. She wore a turquoise two-piece outfit with slivers of silver along the collar. As always, she looked stunning.

"I couldn't keep up with Bela's Hungarian dances anymore, I thought I'd sneak away for a little break," he told her, grinning. Dimitri took off his jacket and placed it on the tree trunk for Erica.

"I see," Erica answered, her eyes telling him she didn't believe his answer entirely. "Tell me, what do you think of Bianca and her…date?"

Dimitri smiled. Today was the first time Bianca had attended a public function with her girlfriend, and as much as Erica denied it, Dimitri knew that Erica would never be entirely comfortable with her daughter's sexuality.

"I think Samantha's a lovely girl. As long as Bianca is happy with her that's all that matters to me."

"She doesn't like to be called that you know. She goes by 'Sam.'"

"Lots of women do, sweetheart." He held her close to him, knowing his strength always gave her comfort, when something bothered her.

"I hear her mother is a truck driver…do you think one's upbringing could have anything to do with…?"

Dimitri laughed, "If that were the case Bianca would be the straightest young woman in Pine Valley."

"Dimitri!" She ribbed him for mocking her. "Come, let's go back to the tent."

Erica had a way of taking him away from his melancholy and bringing him back into the present, and he loved her for it.

For a moment, he thought of Edmund and Brooke, and himself and Erica.

'Maybe one day…' he thought.

They walked back to the grounds just in time to see Edmund and Brooke head for the waiting limousine. Brooke held a bouquet of flowers in her hand, "This one is for the ladies only!" A crowd of women gathered around her as she prepared to toss the bouquet.

She turned around and threw it directly into Erica's outstretched arms.

Erica smiled a radiant smile and turned to Dimitri.

_Brynn Wydd, Wales _

Alex was kneeling on the floor of the living room trying, in vain, to button up Max's shirt. "Oh, would you stop fidgeting, you're driving me crazy." It seemed for every button she did up, he opened another one.

"Take your hands off your shirt, now!" He looked at her with his big, brown eyes, as if contemplating whether she was truly angry or not.

She knew precisely what he was doing and gave him her most serious look. "I mean it. Put your little fingers somewhere else, anywhere but near your shirt, because if you don't let me button this up soon, I may strangle you with it."

"Ok," was all he said before removing his hands from his shirt and starting to play with her own blouse. As she did up his buttons, he began undoing hers.

Alex tried hard to stay angry with him but the sheer cleverness of his actions made her grin, "Oh, you devil. You are just like your father. You are going to be such a ladies man."

Heidi walked into the living room, just as Alex finished dressing her son. Alex kissed Max's forehead. "There you go, my little Count, go bother Heidi, on the way into town."

Alex asked Heidi once more, "Are you sure, you don't mind taking him with you?"

Heidi was going in to the village to have lunch with Phillip, a local butcher, who seemed to be well on his way to falling in love with her Swiss nanny. Heidi had introduced Phillip to Alex, a few weeks after she had returned from New York, asking her if it was all right that he join them for dinner one evening.

Philip had been so nervous during the dinner he had dropped a whole ladle of soup in his lap. But in his nervousness and eagerness to impress her for Heidi's sake, he'd endeared himself to her more than if he had been a brilliant conversationalist, well versed in the intricacies of stem cell research. He genuinely adored Heidi and saw her for the size of her heart, not her body.

"Hmm…if you keep this up, _you'll_ need a nanny soon."

Heidi blushed.

Alex was grateful that Heidi had decided to stay on with her, after she came back from New York and explained what had happened the night she nearly killed herself. It had been a long, tearful conversation, during an equally long walk around the countryside. One which had left them with a new, unbreakable bond.

"Of course I don't mind taking him along." Alex had wanted to give Heidi the day off but then she received an early morning phone call from Charlotte instructing her to go to Swansea with Justin to pick up a newly recruited agent.

"Why do I need to go along?" Alex had asked her mother, once she was in her office, not bothering to hide her annoyance.

"Usually Dr.Lewellyn is the one who performs a complete physical examination of any new agent, however he's too ill with pneumonia at the moment. So, instead, of postponing the pickup it occurred to me I might as well make use of my other physician on hand."

"I'm a medical researcher not a general practitioner," Alex replied hoping to dissuade her mother. "I can't remember the last time I gave someone a physical. Or saw a naked man for that matter…I'll likely get it all wrong."

"Very funny." Charlotte's lips had thinned, but Alex could have sworn she saw a hint of amusement in her mother's eyes. "You spent countless days studying pediatric medicine, so you could look after Max, I imagine you'll be able to handle a general check up. Lewellyn has given Justin a folder of instructions for you. I expect you to follow it to a tee."

Charlotte left in a hurry, nearly in mid-sentence, not giving Alex a chance to argue. And so, she had to ask Heidi yet another favor. 

Now, back at the cottage, Alex heard the honking of a car horn.

It was Justin's way of letting her know he was here to pick her up. She gave Max another kiss, and he returned it with a wet one of his own. "Pretend you're a sweet little boy for a change, when you go for lunch with Heidi and Philip." She winked at him, and he tried to do the same, his co-ordination not allowing him. Instead, he ended up with both eyes half closed, making Alex laugh.

When she went outside, she saw Justin Black sitting inside a brand new silver Porsche 911 Turbo.

Alex was duly impressed. "Well, well…did my mother buy you a new toy?"

"Just get in the car," he ordered, irritated by her presence already.

Alex stood next to the vehicle, admiring it, "You know this is a car meant for racing, not for traipsing around the Welsh countryside, don't you?"

"What I do with it is none of your business. Don't make this day more difficult than it has to be, just get in."

Alex walked around to the driver's side, "I'll get in, as long as I get to sit behind the wheel."

Justin laughed, "You're crazier than I thought, if you think I'm letting you drive this car."

"If you don't let me drive, I won't go."

Justin got out of the car and stood next to Alex, glaring at her.

Heidi watched their exchange from the kitchen window, with an expression of concern that told Alex she didn't approve. Alex knew exactly what Heidi was trying to tell her. That Justin was a loose cannon and that the pleasure of irritating him wasn't worth the consequences of what he might do to retaliate.

"What are you going to do?" Alex asked him, unafraid, "Coerce me into the car? Break my fingers again? I won't be able to do an exam with broken fingers. I don't think Charlotte would appreciate that. Just imagine that, falling out of her favor…what would you do then?"

He mumbled some sort of obscenity that Alex didn't quite catch and threw the car keys at her.

She picked them up from the ground, "I knew you'd see it my way."

She stepped behind the wheel, as Heidi watched on, shaking her head.

Justin got into the passenger seat, scowling.

"I suggest you fasten your seat belt, Mr. Black," Alex told him.

"I suggest you stop telling me what to do, before you regret it."

She smiled at him, "Fine. Have it your way. Don't say I didn't warn you."

Before he could shoot back a reply, Alex stepped hard on the gas pedal and felt her seat vibrate as the car flew out of the gravel driveway.

Heidi gasped as she saw the cloud of dust they left behind. Then she closed her eyes, unable to watch what was about to take place.

Justin watched the landscape fly past them as they approached a speed of 85 miles an hour. Alex moved from first to fifth gear in what seemed like a matter of seconds.

He held on to the dashboard in front of him, hyper-extending his arms in the process.

"What the hell…are you doing!?" he yelled. It was difficult for him to speak, against the force of the speed. "Slow down, you're going to kill us both!"

As soon as he said the words, Alex stepped on the brakes, bringing the car to a ferocious halt. A cloud of dust swirled around the car and Justin had to use every ounce of his strength to keep from going through the windshield. Searing pain shot up his arms in the effort.

Alex smiled in amusement as she watched Justin cough and gasp from the dust that came in through his open window.

"Are you ready to fasten your seatbelt now?"

Alex saw that he was about to open the door and get out, but he was too slow. Before he could open it, she had already accelerated again.

There was a look of pure terror in his eyes as the Porsche approached the 100 mile an hour mark on the narrow country road. It shook and trembled, while the engine roared.

This time a frantic Justin managed to clasp the buckle of his seat belt. Alex slowed down ever so slightly, her hands skillfully maneuvering the gear box, again going from 5th to 2nd gear in a matter of seconds, and then turning and locking the steering wheel, before he had a chance to comprehend what she was about to do.

The car spun around, once and then twice and then a third time, in a perfect circle. Justin could not see outside the window anymore and his stomach heaved. The entire landscape spun around him in a blur of colors.

He gasped, trying to catch his breath, once the car stopped spinning. And as soon as it did, Alex pressed the down the gas again, going even faster this time.

"Maybe you should close the window," she suggested.

"Stop!" he pleaded, "This is insane!"

Alex calmly glanced over to Justin, waiting until the car went so fast, that she could see the fear in his eyes again. "Let's try this once more," she told him over the roar of the engine.

As she did the first time, she again locked the steering wheel and this time the Porsche spun uncontrollably fast, enough so that for a moment its two right side wheels left the ground and hovered in the air.

Justin clenched his hands against the dashboard, not entirely convinced they'd get out of this car alive.

Then he screamed.

All while the car kept spinning, until it finally settled itself, in a perfectly even position on the road.

Alex watched in amusement as Justin leapt out of the car. His trembling knees couldn't support him and he fell down onto them, kneeling on the grass by the side of the road. Then he starting throwing up, heaving uncontrollably until he completely emptied his stomach.

Alex leaned against the Porsche, stifling a yawn as she waited for Justin Black to regain his composure.

When he finally stood back up, he gave her the iciest glare she had ever seen.

In return, she offered him an equally sadistic smile, "Now, aren't you glad you wore that seatbelt?"

Justin was livid, and for a instant Alex wondered whether he might try and kill her on the spot.

"You're going to regret this day," was what he said instead, "I'll make sure of it, if it's the last thing I do."

Alex shrugged her shoulders, "We'll see." Then she threw the car keys at him, "I'm done. You can drive now."


	13. Chapter 13

_**Chapter XIII **_

_Three years later _

_Brynn Wydd, Wales_

Heidi and Alex sat at the wooden kitchen table of the cottage, waiting for the phone to ring.

It was an unseasonably chilly September evening.

Although Heidi no longer lived at the cottage, but in the nearby village with her newlywed husband Philip, she decided to wait there that night with Alex.

It was the least she could do.

"What do you think Charlotte is going to do?" Heidi asked her.

Alex shook her head, eyes staring into space. "I don't know. I'm not sure."

Only a few hours before, Alex had returned from her latest assignment in Rome, and the moment she stepped into the cottage where Heidi had been staying, while Alex was away to look after Max, she had known something was terribly wrong.

It was one of the few times she had seen Alex lose her cool. She'd been visibly distraught.

"What's wrong?" Heidi had asked her then, putting a careful hand on her friend's shoulder.

Alex had looked at her, ashamed. "For the first time…I couldn't do it, Heidi. I couldn't kill him. He's a monster. He's killed dozens of people with a lethal nerve gas. But he has a son. And I saw him. He's the same age as Max…"

Heidi had taken Alex into her arms then and comforted her, but now as they sat at the table waiting, she wondered what the consequences of her failure would be. Whether it could mean the end of life as they had known it for the past six years.

"I'm sure you're not the first person who has failed an assignment, no?" Heidi suggested.

"Apparently there was an agent once…but he died trying," Alex told her.

"You can make up something, then. Some reason why it couldn't be done."

Alex shook her head, "Charlotte is not stupid. I'm not sure I can pull off lying to her. If she thinks I can't do this anymore…then she has no more use for me. And if she no longer needs me, I'm as good as dead. And where does that leave Max?"

Heidi watched as Alex kept staring into space, her earlier distress was now replaced with a frightening calm.

"Stop it. You're being paranoid. You're much too valuable for Charlotte to give up on you after one failure. You don't think she'll…." Heidi couldn't finish her sentence. She was interrupted by Max's arrival.

One of his school friend's parents had driven him home after taking him to a local soccer game and he'd come running through the door.

"Mum, you're back!"

He ran towards Alex, put his arms around her, and kissed her. He had such a fierce and unabashed love for Alex; Heidi loved observing them together.

"Did you miss me?" he asked her.

Alex smiled as she pulled him close. "Miss you? Why would I miss you, there's lots of little boys in Rome."

"Ah, Mum," he groaned.

"How was the soccer game?" she asked managing to pull him onto her lap. It took effort, now that he was getting almost too big to pick up.

Max's eyes lit up at the question, "Oh it was brilliant, Mum. You should've been there. Roger Bedford he scored the winning goal in the last few minutes of the game. His parents were so excited they were jumping up and down." He grinned as he went on, "And then Roger's dad almost fell over backwards on the bench."

"So you won then?"

"Of course, 5-4. Roger's mum bought us all ice creams afterwards."

"That was nice of her."

"She told me to say hello to you. There's another game on Sunday, are you going to come this time?"

"I…sure…" Alex was about to add something else when she heard the phone ring.

Heidi picked it up.

"It looks like I may have to leave again for a bit tonight," Alex told Max, "If you go upstairs and get ready for bed, I'll try to be back before you're asleep, ok?"

"Will you tell me about your trip then?" Heidi knew he loved it when Alex told him about the strange and far away places she visited, and most of all he loved it when she promised to take him, one day, to the ones she liked the most.

"If it's not too late I will." Alex kissed him on the forehead, "Love you."

He jumped off her lap and ran up the stairs, dragging his school sac behind him.

Heidi's expression was sombre after Max left. "It's Charlotte. She said she wants to see you."

_Pine Valley Inn, Pine Valley, PA _

Dimitri held the ring up against the light coming in through the restaurant window, in order to bring out its elusive blue hue, and to show it off to Bianca.

"Aha, I can see it now," she observed, her eyes squinting against the light, "A Marick Diamond, of course! It's absolutely beautiful."

"Like your mother and you," Dimitri added.

Bianca smiled at the compliment. "So you're finally going to do it, Uncle Dimitri? You're going to ask Mom to marry you?"

He nodded, "Tonight at Wildwind, before we have dinner. But I wanted to tell you first because I wanted to have your blessing."

"Oh Dimitri, you know I adore you, and you've made my mom very happy over the past six years. This will be the icing on the cake for her."

"I know it's taken me a very long time to ask her."

Bianca looked at him with her warm, gentle eyes, "You don't have to explain that to me Dimitri. I know it's because you loved Alex so much. That only makes me love you more."

Dimitri kissed her on the cheek, "Thank you for saying that, and for your blessing and most of all, thank you for being a part of my life."

Bianca blushed. Even now, as she was on the edge of womanhood, she still had a natural shyness that, Dimitri thought, only heightened her charm.

"Ok, enough sweet talk," she told him "I'm starving, let's order."

Dimitri picked up the menu, "Good idea."

_Brynn Wydd, Wales _

Charlotte Devane's face was a mix of fury and disgust. She pounded her fist down hard on her desk, "Stop lying to me!" she told Alex, "If you don't start telling the truth, _I will make you regret it."_

Alex had spent the last hour listening to Charlotte's questions, mixed with occasional outbursts of livid anger, as she tried to make sense of what happened in Rome.

'Tried to pry it out of me…' Alex thought.

"I've been telling you the truth, over and over again," Alex was adamantly sticking to her story. Maybe, just maybe, Charlotte would buy it. "I told you, he was too heavily guarded. The opportunity for me to take him down simply didn't present itself."

Charlotte was equally adamant about unveiling her lie. "You didn't shoot him because you froze. You realized he had a wife and child and you couldn't do it, isn't that right, Sasha? You're the same spineless, gutless woman you were before you started working for me! And if you can't do this anymore, what good are you to me?"

Alex shook her head, knowing that Charlotte was waiting for her to break down and admit the truth. "If I had shot him and failed to kill him, I would have risked exposing not just myself but you and your entire organization. I didn't think it was a risk worth taking."

"_That,"_ Charlotte said, pointing an accusatory finger at Alex, "was not your decision to make. Your failure cost me an immense financial loss, and I've forever lost the trust of those who hired my services for this assignment. Worst of all, your single-handed failure marred the impeccable reputation of Brynn Wydd. That's something that will take years to restore."

It had been a long day since she left Rome that morning and Alex was hoping to finally put an end to this interrogation, "Look, I can't change what happened, or in this case, what didn't happen. But I came back to you in good faith and I've told you the truth, can you not even give me the damn benefit of the doubt after all I've done for you these past six years?"

Charlotte laughed out loud. " 'Came back to me in good faith'? You make me laugh Sasha. The only reason you came back at all was because your little brat is here and because Dimitri is still alive for me to make good on my threat. You failed because you're weak-willed and incompetent. You always have been and always will be. Your father used to say it was God's way of punishing me for taking you away from your real parents and sister. Instead of getting Anna, I ended up with you, the one who wanted to read and play doctor. What a cruel joke indeed."

Charlotte's bitter words stung Alex, even though she was convinced she'd long been immune to her mother's hatred. "If you get rid of me, you lose one of your best agents," she said finally, playing her last card. "It will take you years to find someone with my research background. Someone who can blend into all the scientific symposiums and conferences you've had me weasel into…"

Charlotte slumped down in her seat, and for the first time that night, Alex thought she saw a sign of weariness in her mother. "I'll tell you what Sasha. Euan has an assignment in Warsaw next week. I'm going to pull him from his assignment and put you in his place."

"What?" Alex stood up in shock, "A week? You can't be serious, there's no way I can prepare for an assignment in one week. You're setting me up for a fall!"

Charlotte looked at her with renewed disgust at her lack of gratitude, "What I'm doing is giving you another chance to prove yourself, as a sign of my 'good faith in you'. It's more than I would have done six years ago."

"But there's no way I can familiarize myself with my target in a week!"

Charlotte didn't let her finish, "Get out. I'm tired of looking at you, it's making me ill."

"I need more time than that…"

"I said 'Get out!'"

Alex glared at Charlotte, before turning her back and leaving.

As soon as she left, Charlotte picked up the phone to call Justin Black. "I want you to set up a surveillance team on Alexandra immediately. I don't trust her anymore."

When she returned to the cottage, Heidi was still there, waiting for her.

"Thanks for staying with Max. Is he asleep?" she asked.

Heidi nodded, "He is. He tried hard to stay awake but he was so tired. How did it go with Charlotte?"

Alex sat down on the sofa, exhausted. The meeting with Charlotte had left her with a pounding headache. "She wants to send me on another assignment next week."

"Well, that's good news, isn't it? It means she still trusts you, doesn't it?"

Alex shook her head, "No, she knows I can't do this anymore. There's no way I can do an assignment in a week's notice. She is setting me up to fail. She probably even has a back up agent in place"

Heidi was becoming upset, "Then prove her wrong."

Alex looked at her sadly, "No. I think it's a sign Heidi…that it has to end. No more killing and justifying it by saying I'm doing it to save Max and Dimitri. I'm a doctor, Heidi. I took an oath to save lives and all I've done in the past few years is take them. It's starting to turn me into a person I no longer recognize, and it has to end. A long time ago, I remember standing on a beach with Edmund and you know what he told me Heidi? He thought my love for Dimitri had killed him, he said 'You're not a healer, you're a death sentence.' If he only knew how correct he was."

Heidi had started to cry, "That's not true…! You had no choice but to do what Charlotte asked. If she no longer needs you, she will kill you!"

Alex felt very calm again; "I have exactly a week to get Max away from here. To get him to safety and to his father in Pine Valley, and to do that I need your help."

_Wildwind, Pine Valley, PA _

Dimitri looked at Erica's engagement ring once more before putting it back into its box for the final time. Then he glanced at his own wedding band and did something he hadn't done in eight years. He took it off.

For a moment, he felt naked, as though he had removed a part of himself.

"I never thought I'd do that," he told the photograph of Alex that sat on the mantle of the fireplace. "Please don't think this means I love you any less, or that I'll stop thinking of you. It's just that, well, you know Erica, marriage means the world to her. If I continued seeing her without it, it would break her heart, and she doesn't deserve that. She gave me so much hope and then love, since you've been gone. I want to give something back to her. I hope you'll understand. I know it won't be the way it was between us, I don't expect anything ever will be, but I love her now and I pray that that will be enough."

He took the photograph and removed it from the mantle, placing it inside a drawer, along with his wedding band.

When he walked into the hallway towards the door, he saw that, Erica was already there. "Stella let me in, I hope you don't mind." She wore a tiny, black, silk top that was cut low enough to show off most of her bare, tanned back. As always, she looked radiant.

Dimitri kissed her cheek, "Of course not."

"I'm famished, Dimi. Tell me what do you have in store for us tonight? It will be hard to top the garlic escargots wrapped in the phyllo pastry we had to start last week…"

Dimitri paused, catching his breath. "Before dinner, there is something very important I have to ask you." He bent down on his knees and opened the ring box, much to Erica's shock.

"Erica…you've been there for me these past six years. You've loved me unconditionally, even when I wasn't always an easy man to love and in turn, I've grown to love you so very much. Erica, I've asked you this before and I'm asking you again, will you marry me?"

For once Erica Kane was speechless. "I…oh my God…I don't know what to say. This is so completely…unexpected!"

"How about 'yes'?"

Erica's eyes filled with tears, "Why yes, of course! Of course, I'll marry you Dimitri. I thought you'd never ask!"

She laughed and cried all at once as he slipped the ring on her finger.

"Thank you," Dimitri said before kissing her, "For accepting and for loving me."

Erica couldn't stop the tears from flowing, "The pleasure was mine Dimitri, all mine."

He took her hand in his, smiling, "Now, it's time for a feast to mark the occasion."


	14. Chapter 14

_**Chapter XIV **_

"_Open your eyes, my gentle son  
Take your leave and take your gun._  
_Follow your father to the hills,  
Heaven gives and heaven kills."_

_Brynn Wydd, Wales _

"Here it is," Heidi handed Alex the forged passport. "Philip said it was a piece of cake to get it from the print shop. It's amazing what a year's supply of beef tenderloin can do."

"And he bought the plane ticket with his mother's credit card?"

Heidi nodded, "Yes. He'll have it by tomorrow, and he also arranged for the car and driver to meet Max at the airport and take him to Pine Valley once he arrives in the US, according to the instructions you gave him."

Alex examined the passport, "Good. I can't thank you enough for doing this for me."

"You don't have to thank me, just make sure everything goes according to plan."

Mere meters outside the cottage, Justin Black sat amidst the bushes with his with his radio equipment, listening to their transmitted conversation. He radioed Charlotte, "I knew it, there is something going on. She is trying to get Max out of the country. The only thing I haven't been able to establish is when, but I'm certain it will be within the next three days."

"Good job Justin. Just make sure it doesn't happen."

"Of course."

Looking outside the cottage window, Alex suddenly noticed an unnatural beam of light coming from the bushes. She motioned Heidi to stop talking, and got up to turn the radio on.

"What is it?" Heidi whispered.

Alex ran her hand underneath the kitchen table and came across a distinct metal bump. "Dammit!"

"What is it?"

Alex moved her index finger to her lips and got the nearest sheet of paper and wrote down that her mother's spies were listening in on them and for Heidi to not say anything more.

Alex nodded, "We're going to have to change the plans." She moved over to the radio, to turn it off, knowing whoever was listening would get suspicious if it were turned on too loudly all of a sudden.

"Well, looks like it's still working after all," she said as though she had a sudden need to check the radio batteries, " Heidi, you must be tired after taking care of everything. Let me drive you back into town and we'll go over the details tomorrow."

"Alright," Heidi wasn't sure what to say, knowing her every word was being monitored.

Justin watched as they walked to the car together.

_Wildwind, Pine Valley, PA _

"Dimitri, would you have a look at this for me. Tempo is doing an investigation on this mining company in the Appalachians and I'd like to get your opinion on these figures. There's something here that just doesn't add up…" Edmund announced as he entered Dimitri's study.

His brother's arrival startled Dimitri.

"Hey, I didn't mean to make you jump. Is there something you're not telling me. You've been on edge all day?"

For the first time in a long time, Dimitri again felt the same inexplicable sensations he had felt so often in the past. This time it was feeling of impending dread combined with a strange sense of joy. The two conflicting sensations tugged at him, making him jumpy. However, he knew better than to mention them to Edmund.

"Nothing at all, little brother. Let me see those figures." He grinned at Edmund, "And don't forget to credit me for my keen business acumen, when you publish this article."

"Big brothers do these sort of things out of love…not for the glory," Edmund shot back.

"Glory, right…" Dimitri focused on the accounting statistics and tried to ignore the nagging sensations that wouldn't let go.

_Brynn Wydd, Wales _

Heidi and Alex stood outside, in the backyard of the cottage, watching the sunrise, over the green hills in the distance.

"So, you're sure you know what to do?" Alex asked Heidi once more.

"Yes, I've never been more sure of anything. I'm going to leave for the village by myself, and you and Max are going to follow later by car. Whoever is watching us will follow you and Max. You're going to lose the car that follows you, and as soon as you do, Max is going to exit your car. Then you're purposely going to let them spot you again, and, thinking that Max is still in the car with you, they'll continue following you. In the meantime, I'm taking a cab to Swansea and bringing Max to the airport."

"That's right, but you forgot something." Alex's expression was focused and serious.

"I can't go to the airline counter with him…I still don't understand why you want the taxi driver to do that," Heidi asked.

"It doesn't matter why, just promise me to let him do it."

"Of course." Everything was happening too fast, and Heidi's emotions were in turmoil. She would barely have a chance to say goodbye to the boy she loved like a son and when she thought of what the future held for Alex, she felt a gnawing dread in the pit of her stomach. "When Max is safely on his way to the US, what then, Alex?"

Alex didn't know what to tell her, "I don't know Heidi. All I can concentrate on right now is Max and getting him away from here."

"You have to think about how _you're_ going to get back to your son. He needs you so much!"

"Stop it. Please." Alex pushed her thick hair away from her face; " I can't talk about this right now. I have to speak with Max before we leave." She turned around, but Heidi grabbed her arm before she had a chance to head back into the cottage. "When I come back from the Swansea we _are_ going to talk about this. I'm not going to watch my best friend give up this easily."

Alex knew if she started to discuss what lay ahead, she would lose the small amount of self-control she still had left. "Don't you think I wouldn't do everything to be with Max? But I can't think of that right now. Right now his safety is all that matters, everything else takes a back seat, because if he's not safe, nothing else matters anyway, and now I have to say good bye to him, and I need all the strength in the world to do that…"

Heidi embraced her and cupped Alex's face in her hands. "I'm sorry…you go and see Max. Show him how much you love him. Show him so that he will always remember it."

Her words made Alex cry and Heidi wiped the tears away for her. "Don't let him see you sad, okay?."

Max was coming down the stairs, carrying his backpack.

"Max…come here," Alex called out to him, her voice still shaky. "I want you to come for a little walk with me, before we get in the car."

"Okay." He looked at her and tilted his head, as if trying to figure out why she was so serious.

"Are you excited about going on a plane trip?"

He nodded and gave her one of his lopsided grins, "Yeah. I can't wait."

Once they were sufficiently far away from Justin's spying view, Alex made him stop and kneeled down next to him.

"There's some important things that I haven't told you about this trip. Things that I need you to know."

Max didn't say anything but his eyes told her he was listening.

"There are some people that don't want you to go away, so I have to do things to trick them because it's very important that you go on this trip. When we drive into town together, there will be someone following us and I want them to think you're in the car with me, going to the airport…"

"But I _will_ be in the car with you…"

"No…only until we get rid of the people following us, then I'm going to ask you to get out of the car really quickly and Heidi will take you to the airport in another car. Can you do that?"

He nodded, his expression serious. "Sure…but when are_ you _coming to the airport?"

Alex had never lied to him and she was not going to start now. "I'm not coming with you, Max."

"But…" She saw his eyes suddenly fill with dread, "Why not Mum?"

"There's more I need to tell you and I don't have much time. Please Max, I need you to listen really, _really_ carefully." She handed him a letter she had written to Dimitri, one that included a photograph of her and Max together. Then she handed him a jewelry box. It held the Omega watch she had bought Dimitri in New York City. "When you arrive at the house I'm sending you to, I want you to give this box to this man," she showed him a picture of Dimitri she had printed off the Internet. "Dimitri Marick"

Max looked at the picture, "Dimitri Marick, that's my Dad, isn't it? He has the same name as me."

'You're too clever for your own good,' Alex wanted to tell him, instead she said, "Yes. That's your Dad." She hated that the only picture she had to give him was a blurry computer printout.

"You sending me away to my Dad?" Max asked and Alex nodded. She had often told him about his father, told him that he was the most wonderful man in the world, and that if it were up to him he would be with him. But she had also told him that it never had been up to Dimitri.

Max's expression was now a mixture of anger and apprehension, and it made Alex feel sick to think of what she was doing to her son. Taking him from everything and everyone he loved, and sending him far away into an unknown world.

'But if it keeps you safe and away from Charlotte's grasp, it's all worth it,' she thought.

"My Dad doesn't even know me. What if he doesn't want me to be with him?" Max asked her sullenly.

Alex held him tight, wondering how much longer she would be able to keep her voice steady, "Oh, my baby, he'll take one look at you and he'll never want to let you go again."

"How do you know that?" he asked her doubtfully.

"You're going to have to trust me on that one,'' she told him gently, ''I've never lied to you Max, and I know if your Dad could have been here from the day you were born he would have loved you more than anything in the world."

"Promise me you'll come afterwards, to be with us?"

It was the one question Alex hoped he wouldn't ask. As much as she didn't want to break his heart, she wouldn't make him a promise that she might not be able to keep.

"You know I love you, don't you?" was what she said instead.

Again, it was as though he saw right through her efforts to avoid the question. He knew her so well it was scary. "I want you to promise me, Mum."

She ran her fingers along his face, "I promise I'm going to do everything in my power to get back to you."

Max started to cry and Alex knew he sensed what she was really telling him. An unbearable ache filled her heart and she didn't think she would be able to let go of him. She held on to him, tighter still and fought back tears, knowing that if she gave them a chance, she wouldn't be able to do what lay ahead.

"Shh…don't cry Max. I need you to be really brave today. Can you do that? Because there is one more thing I have to tell you."

He nodded, biting his lips to stop from crying more. He wanted to show her he was strong and it broke her heart. God, he was so much like his father. He held on to her and ran his fingers through her hair.

"Once you get to your father, he's going to ask you where to find me. He is going to ask you all sorts of questions, like where you lived and how you got to him. He'll ask you about me too. I need you to promise me, no matter how hard he tries to make you tell him where I am that won't tell him. Just tell your father that I'll come to you when it's safe. Can you promise me that, Max?"

"Promise me first that you'll come back to me." He looked at her, his beautiful, brown eyes were full of tears again.

"I promise I'll do everything I can…you have to believe that." Alex wiped the tears from his eyes, as Heidi had done for her. She picked him up and kissed him, feeling the salty wetness of his tears on her lips.

"I don't want you to be sad today Max. Today is going to be a fantastic day. You're going to meet your father and you are going to make him so happy."

She started to carry him towards the car. Max was silent in her arms and Alex knew he was still crying. Like Dimitri, had often done when he was tense, Max stroked her hair, letting it calm him.

Alex started to tell him about Dimitri.

"Did I tell you your Dad has a stable with horses? He's an amazing rider Max. He's going to teach you to ride too…and he can fence with swords. I'm sure he'll let you watch when he practices…" She kept on talking, both to distract Max and to keep herself from crying.

From afar, Justin Black watched as she entered the car, with Max.

"Do you want me to stop them now?" Justin asked Charlotte over the radio.

"Not yet. We don't know if she's taking him away today. I want you to stop her in the act. Just make sure you follow them and have backup ready."

"Of course, Ma'am."

When they were in the car Alex took off his backpack and fastened his seatbelt tightly. He still didn't say anything and she kept talking about Dimitri. While she spoke, he held on to her arm in silence.

In her rearview mirror, Alex saw Justin's poorly hidden car pull out and follow her. At first, she went slowly allowing him to tail her easily and then suddenly she picked up speed.

"Hold on Max."

Alex watched as Justin kept up with her with difficulty. Losing him wouldn't be hard. Not now that she knew he had a fear of speed.

Justin frowned in annoyance while he tried to keep up with her. "You'd think with Max in the car, she wouldn't pull these kind of stunts," he mumbled. The thought of the last time he was in his Porsche with her at the wheel made him slightly nauseous.

Alex lost him in minutes.

She grinned. "Too easy Max. Way too easy."

Justin cursed to himself in his Porsche. He wouldn't radio Charlotte just yet to let her know that he had lost her. There were only so many roads she could have taken; he felt that eventually she would turn up again. He went faster, feeling the car shake on the gravel road.

As soon, as Alex spotted Heidi in the village, she told Max to get out of the car, before Justin spotted them again.

"Ok Max, this is it. Go with Heidi!" Alex almost couldn't stand to look at his tear-stained face.

He held on to her tightly, not listening to what she was telling him.

"Come on Max, you have to go. We don't have much time to do this." She kissed him, "I love you so much, my little Count."

She watched as Heidi undid his seatbelt and gently eased him out of the car, picking him up in her strong arms. She closed the car door and said nothing.

"Mum! Don't go!" Alex heard Max yelling outside.

Alex pressed down on the gas petal and sped away.

'Don't look back,' she told herself, 'You'll never be able to keep driving.' Finally, with Max gone, she gave in to the tears she had held back and let them fall down her face uncontrollably.

_Am I ever going to see you again? _

Eventually, through her tears, she spotted Justin's Porsche in her rearview mirror again. She let him follow her now, keeping him just far away enough so that he would not realize that Max was no longer in the car with her.

Alex wiped away the tears with a shaking hand.

It was going to be a long drive to London.

Back in his Porsche, Justin was grateful to have spotted her again. He radioed Charlotte; "She's taking the highway eastbound. I'm going to assume she is heading for London, probably Heathrow. I'll radio Nigel and William to meet me there. She's going to be in for quite the surprise when she's at the airport."

"Good job, as always," Charlotte replied.

In the meantime, Heidi and Max were in a taxi, well on their way to the airport in Swansea, where Max would fly, as an unaccompanied minor, on a local flight to Dublin, and then continue on an international connection to the United States.

In order to give Max and Heidi a maximum amount of time, Alex slowed down considerably and by the time she parked at Heathrow International Airport, she knew that Max was already in the air, on his way to Dublin.

Alex saw Justin, and two other men, approach her car in the parking garage.

She knew she would not get far, so she didn't bother to try and run.

Justin held a gun to the window, ordering her to get out of the vehicle.

It was one of the other agents who noticed Max's absence, "Where the hell is the little boy?" he asked Justin.

Alex looked at Justin's shocked expression and allowed herself a smile of satisfaction.

_Wildwind, Pine Valley, PA _

After Stella had told her the bizarre news, Erica walked into the study to see Dimitri, who was still poring over Edmund's article.

"Dimitri," Erica bent down to kiss him on the cheek. "This is really odd, and I hate to bother you over an obvious misunderstanding, but Stella says there's an airport limousine driver at the gates, with a little boy. The boy says his name is Max and he insists on seeing you in person."

_ ('Open your Eyes' Bergman, 1972)_


	15. Chapter 15

_**Chapter XV **_

_Heathrow International Airport, London, England_

Justin Black frantically looked everywhere inside Alex's car and saw no trace of Max.

"Get out of the car, now!" he motioned to Alex, waving his gun at her.

"Where is he?" demanded, once he had her pinned next to the car outside.

"Who are you talking about?" she asked, feigning a puzzled look.

Alex's answer filled him with a frustrated rage, amplifying his hatred for her. He rammed his gun into her back; making her sink to the floor in pain, "Don't you play your damn games with me! Where the hell is Max?"

One of the other agents held back Justin, just as he was about to hit her again. "Hey…this is not what Charlotte told us to do. She said she wanted Alexandra and the boy back at Brynn Wydd unharmed. I think you ought to contact Charlotte and let her know you lost the boy."

Justin glared at him, "Don't tell me what to do." Even so, Justin knew he was right; he had to call Charlotte immediately so she could take action from her end, in the event that the boy was still in the country.

Justin dreaded her reaction when he started to dial the number on his cell.

Knowing it was his line, Charlotte answered after one ring. Although he couldn't see her expression, Justin could imagine it with striking clarity. "_You lost the boy along the way?_ What did she do, eject him through the roof of the car?"

"I don't know how it could have happened, I had the car in my view the entire time," he lied. Now it was too late to tell her he'd lost sight of the vehicle for several precious minutes.

"I don't want to hear excuses," she snapped. "Bring her back here to me." Justin offered something along the lines of a profound apology, but he needn't have bothered, Charlotte hung up the phone while he was barely in mid-sentence.

Back in Wales, Charlotte Devane she picked up her phone again as soon as she ended her disastrous conversation with Justin, and she called another one of her agents. "I want you to pick up someone from the village. Her name is Heidi and she lives on top of the local butcher shop with her husband, Philip."

_Wildwind, Pine Valley, PA _

Dimitri put down the article and stood up, next to Erica, "You said there's a little boy and a limousine driver at the gates who want to see me? Well, have them come to the doors."

Erica looked worried, "Are you sure this is a good idea? Maybe it's some protest group trying to pull a prank."

Dimitri grinned at her, "I thought you said it's a little boy. Besides, my operations adhere to the strictest environmental guidelines. And I've started giving women equal pay last month…"

Erica raised her eyebrows.

"Kidding."

Stella led Max and the driver into the living room at Wildwind, just as Dimitri and Erica walked out, so the five of them met halfway in the hallway.

The driver was an oriental man, wearing an immaculately pressed blue uniform, with the logo of a limousine company on his hat. "Are you Mr.Marick?" the driver asked Dimitri.

"Yes, I am."

"Thank you," was all he said as he turned around and walked back out the door.

"Hey you! …You can't just leave this boy here," Erica called after him, but he was already getting back into the car.

While Erica followed the driver outside, Dimitri examined the boy that stood in front of him.

Dimitri guessed he was around six years old. He wore a pair of brown slacks and a white shirt and he carried a knapsack that seemed too big and heavy for him. He sported a head of thick black hair and wore a serious expression on his face.

Dimitri knelt down next to him. "So your name is Max, is that right?"

Dimitri looked into the boy's big, brown eyes. They were red and tired and looked as though they'd cried for some time before coming here. But as he gazed into them, Dimitri suddenly drew back in shock.

He recognized the boy's eyes.

"Yes, my name is Max," the boy answered, observing him just as closely as Dimitri had done. He spoke with an English accent. "I have something my Mum asked me to give to you."

He took a letter and a watchcase out of his knapsack and handed them both to Dimitri.

Dimitri's jaw dropped when he opened the watchcase.

Inside it was an Omega men's watch. It was the same model he had given Alex years ago, except in its blue watch face there was a single Marick diamond. Dimitri turned it around with trembling hands and read the inscription on its back, _'A love for all time. A.'_

As he read it, Dimitri's knees went weak and suddenly he felt like he couldn't get any air into his lungs.

He had to sit down.

Once seated, his hands still shaking, he opened the letter only to notice Alex's messy, hurried handwriting.

The sight of it suddenly made him remember an argument they had, the last time she had left him a note and he had barely been able to read half of it.

"Maybe if you dotted some of your 'i's and crossed a couple of 't's here and there, I could decipher it,' he had scolded her.

"It's something I picked up in med school…you have to learn how to write like a doctor before they let you graduate," she had teased him.

Now as he saw her handwriting in front of him, he focused to make out every word. It was barely a page long.

_My darling Dimitri,_

_I know reading this letter will be a shock to you and I wish there could have been some way for me to tell you all of this in person. Unlike you've been led to believe, I didn't drown the night of Ryan Lavery's party. Charlotte kidnapped me because she needed someone with my research background to work for her organization. She threatened to kill you if I tried to flee or contact you. I know you would never have agreed with my decision to work for her, but at the time it was the only choice that my love for you allowed me to make. It was the only decision that allowed me to protect our unborn child._  
_By now you'll have met your son, Max. He's amazing, Dimitri. He's funny, and smart and he has your gentle heart. Sometimes I watch him when he sleeps at night and I still can't believe that I could have been blessed with such an incredible little person. My greatest regret is that I couldn't tell you about him sooner, so that he could have known the strength of your love growing up. Please protect him and tell him, every single day, how very much I love him and miss him. _  
_Knowing now what you do, you must NOT consider going to the police_ _or any federal agency, and above all, for Max's safety, please don't try to find me. If I've learned anything over these last seven years, it's that Charlotte is above the law, and that in order to defeat her, I have to resort to her own methods.  
I have so little time to say the many things I want to say to you. Please forgive me for the pain I've caused you, for having you think I was dead and for keeping your son from you. Please know that if I had any other choice, I would never have done what I did.  
I've wanted so desperately to tell you one more time how very much I love you, and, now, as I hold this pen in my hand, I wish a had a writer's gift of words to put on paper all the things I feel in my heart. I miss you my darling, so much still, that it hurts. I'm going to do everything in my power to make my way back to you and our son.  
Always yours, Alexandra_

Dimitri's hands shook so hard, he could barely hold on to the paper. "Oh God…this is not possible. It's not…"

He noticed that the envelope the letter was in contained a photograph too and Dimitri hastily pulled it out. It was a photo of Alex and Max, with snow-capped mountains in the background. Max must have been about two years old in the picture.

Meanwhile, Erica had stormed back into the living room. "I can't believe it, he's just going to leave him here! This is ludicrous! I'm going to…!" Erica stopped herself in mid-sentence, her anger changing to concern when she saw Dimitri. "Dimitri, what's wrong? You're so pale!"

Dimitri handed her the letter and the photograph. "It's Alex…she…she didn't die."

She looked at him as though he was crazy, "What are you talking about?"

Dimitri watched her expression change as she read the letter. "This is unbelievable, Dimitri! Can this really be true?"

Dimitri looked at her, then at Max, standing there with his knapsack, observing them both.

Alex's words echoed in his mind and for the first time in years, he could hear her voice again.

_Our son, Max. He's funny and smart and he has your gentle heart.' _

'_Our son'_. My son. Dimitri forced himself to stand up and he moved towards Max. "You…you, uh, must be very tired from your trip," he told the boy, his voice sounding far away to his ears. "Let me take your knapsack for you."

He removed his knapsack and, just then, Dimitri wanted nothing more than to take the boy into his arms. But he knew it was too soon for that. Max probably had no idea he was his father. "Can I get one of my housekeepers to make a bed ready for you, so you can get some sleep?" he asked his son.

Max shrugged his shoulders, trying to seem indifferent. But his eyes betrayed him, they were so sleepy Dimitri thought he saw his eyelids close more than once, even while he was still standing.

"I think sleep is probably the best idea," Dimitri concluded. He couldn't stop from staring at his son. _His son_. "Max tell me…did your mom tell you anything about me?"

Max nodded sleepily, "She said you're my dad, and that you have a stable with horses and that you can ride them really well."

Dimitri smiled and he wondered what else Alex had told him. "She's right, I do have a stable with many horses. Tomorrow, I'll take you to see them and I'll show you which one was your Mom's favourite. Would you like that?"

Max nodded reluctantly, "Okay."

Dimitri took his hand, "Come. Let's go upstairs. You can sleep in my bed tonight until we have Stella make you up your own tomorrow."

He took Max to his bedroom and gave him one of Sam's old t-shirts to sleep in. He was asleep in less than a minute. Dimitri watched him sleep for the longest time, until he heard Erica entering the room.

He felt her hand on his shoulder, squeezing it gently. "My love, come downstairs with me. We need to talk about…" She stared at Max, sleeping on their bed. "Everything."

Dimitri bent down to give Max a kiss on his forehead and followed Erica downstairs.

Erica poured him a brandy, "Here. You look like you could use this."

Dimitri sat down, still shaken. "I feel like this is all a dream. A dream that this can't possibly be real."

Erica put her arms around him; "You have to take this slowly Dimitri. The first thing we have to do is arrange for a DNA test…"

Dimitri looked at her, puzzled, "DNA test? Erica, have you looked at him? He's a mirror image of Alex. His face, his eyes…oh god, especially his eyes."

Erica gave him a concerned look, "He's a beautiful child Dimitri. I know you want to believe he's your son, but, really, he could be anyone's…"

" 'Anyone's'?" Dimitri cut her off, "What about the letter? You can't argue that was Alex's handwriting. Plus, there's the photograph and the watch!" He couldn't believe that she would doubt the miracle he'd been given this afternoon.

Erica's voice was still gentle. "Darling, handwriting can be forged, and pictures can be doctored. I don't want to see you get hurt all over again. You cannot just accept this child as your son without some sort of concrete proof! We don't even know if Alex is really alive. If she did indeed write that letter she could have written it a long time ago."

Dimitri understood her need to protect him from the shock he felt and he didn't blame her for it. He pulled her towards him. "DNA tests take time, and I don't have time to waste anymore. All these years, I've had these feelings that Alex was still out there, alive somewhere. I should have trusted these feelings, Erica. When Lieutenant Frye told me, I couldn't see Charlotte in prison, I should have _insisted _and I would have found out that that she was never there to begin with. Three years ago, I got a phone call and I knew then that it was from Alex, but I dismissed it as my crazy imagination." How could he explain to her what he had known all along? "I had so many signs, Erica_. So many_. There were countless signs telling me that she wasn't dead, and I ignored them all. I should have listened to my gut instincts, but I didn't. I'm not going to let that happen anymore. I _know _that Max is my son and that's going to be good enough for now. Until I find Alex."

"We should go to the police," Erica tried to reason with him, "Whatever Alex is involved in is obviously dangerous."

"No. No police. It's what Alex said in the letter." Dimitri said firmly. A sudden determination filled him.

"She also said in the letter not to go looking for her," Erica argued. "If you're going to listen to one of her warnings, you better listen to all of them."

"She said that in order to protect me!" Dimitri countered.

"Maybe there's a reason for that," Erica told him, frustrated now. "Maybe she realizes that going after her could get you killed. If this child really is your son that's all the more reason to not do something so reckless."

Dimitri looked at the letter again, "If she sent him to me after all this time, it means something's gone very wrong. She's in trouble." Dimitri met Erica's eyes, and this time he was almost apologetic. Regretful. "I know you don't understand…and I'm sorry. But I _have_ to find her. I can't give up on her this time."

"You don't even know where to begin looking for her, never mind that this could get you killed! She could be anywhere in the UK, or anywhere in Europe for that matter."

"I'm sorry this is upsetting you," he said softly. "I don't mean to hurt you or to get hurt myself, but I have to find her, and tomorrow Max is going to help me do it."

He kissed her on the cheek, and went back upstairs, and for the very first time he spent a night watching his son sleep.


	16. Chapter 16

_**Chapter XVI **_

_Wildwind, Pine Valley, PA _

Erica sat in the study of Wildwind; drinking a hot cup of coffee that Stella had brought her. It was 6am and the sun's rays were slowly starting to filter though the window of the study. Dimitri was upstairs in the shower. Neither of them had slept last night.

Erica heard the door of the study creak open and saw Max's head peek inside. She was about to ask him what he was doing up already but then realized that if he had indeed flown in from the United Kingdom yesterday, the time difference would make it feel like noon for him.

"Good morning, Max," Erica told him. "Come on in. Dimitri will be down soon." She stretched out her hand, "I didn't get a chance to introduce myself yesterday, my name is Erica I'm Dimitri's…" she was about to say 'fiancée', but stopped herself not sure whether it was because she figured it was a word he wouldn't understand or because she was afraid he would. "I'm Dimitri's…friend."

He let her shake his hand, but said nothing, merely looking at her with his big, beautiful eyes.

"Aren't you shy?" Erica remarked. "That's certainly something you didn't get from your mother. She was never at a loss of words with me." Erica was about to say something else when she saw Dimitri enter the room.

"Well, look who's awake," Dimitri said to Max when he saw him next to Erica. "Come lets go upstairs and see if you have any more clothes in that huge knapsack of yours and then we'll have some breakfast, and go look at those horses, alright?"

"Ok," Max nodded and was about to follow when something caught his eye and made him stop dead in his tracks. It was a wedding photo. Max picked it up and stared at it.

Dimitri observed him, wondering what was going on in his mind, as he stood in this foreign house, far from home, with two people that were complete strangers to him. "That's you and Mum," was all he mumbled, as though shocked to see a photograph of them together.

Max's surprise made Dimitri realize that it probably was indeed the first picture he had seen of his parents together.

"It's our wedding in England," he explained. " We were so happy that day, Max. We loved each other very much."

Max's face lit up at the words, "You and Mum were married? Like a husband and wife?" He asked the question with caution, like it was an inconceivable notion.

Dimitri grinned, "Yeah. Like a husband and wife…Come on, let's go upstairs and get you dressed and washed."

Max hesitated, lingering by the photograph.

"Here," Dimitri handed him the picture in its frame. "Take it with you, we'll put it in your bedroom."

Max took the photograph gratefully and Dimitri thought he saw the first hint of trust in his eyes.

From inside the sitting room, Erica observed the interaction between them and shakily took another sip of her coffee. Seeing them together made her realize that, from now on, nothing would be the same anymore.

_Brynn Wydd, Wales _

When Alex returned to her mother's office at Brynn Wydd, at Justin's gunpoint, the first thing she saw was an obviously distressed Heidi, pinned into a chair by two agents. Heidi's long curly hair was in disarray and parts of her dress were torn.

"I'm sorry I didn't mean to tell her," was what exclaimed as soon as Alex entered the room. She was crying. "I'm so sorry, Alex. She said she would kill him…" Her words were interrupted by great racking sobs, "She said she would kill Philip!"

"Oh Heidi…it's okay," Alex wanted to comfort her but Justin held her back. Alex knew there was a possibility that Charlotte would realize how much Heidi had helped her in smuggling out Max and that she would try to interrogate her. It was for that reason that Alex had insisted that Heidi not look at Max's flight tickets or go up to the airline counter with him. Heidi still believed Max had gone to New York City when instead Alex had him fly to Chicago and arranged for him to drive to Pine Valley via pre-arranged limousine from there.

"Aren't you at all disappointed that your friend didn't hold out long enough for you to arrive here before telling me all the details of your son's flight schedule? You'll be happy to know my men waited for him when he arrived in New York," Charlotte baited Alex.

Alex took comfort in the fact that she knew Charlotte was bluffing.

"You're quite the pair the two of you, aren't you? You're small and pathetic," she glared at Alex. "And you," she looked at Heidi with disgust, "You're more like a whale than a human. Morbidly obese, grotesque really…"

Alex watched the effect Charlotte's words had on Heidi and wondered how anyone could relish inflicting misery in another being the way her mother did. "Fine words coming from someone with almost no semblance of humanity. I don't think I've ever met a more revolting person than you, 'mother'," Alex tried to rile her in return. "And I do use the term loosely…"

Charlotte reached out and slapped her hard across the face.

Recoiling, Alex felt the taste of blood on her lips. "It's easy to be the bully when you're in a room full of men with guns on your payroll, isn't it?" she shot back, anger fuelling her bravado.

"Stop it Alex! Don't do this for me!" Heidi pleaded, her face a mask of fear. "Please, Alex, don't…"

"I don't have much to lose, right 'mother'?" Alex prodded her, afraid that it was the truth.

"Let's just say I won't be enlisting your services anymore."

'It's not hard to be brave', Alex thought, 'When you have nothing to lose.' Part of her wanted to beg Charlotte for one more chance to prove herself, to throw herself down on her knees at her mercy, to promise to kill again if necessary, to do _anything_…just for one more chance to see Max again.

The thought that she would never see her beautiful son again, filled her with so much sadness, it was a physical ache, like someone reaching into her chest to wrench out her heart. "This doesn't involve Heidi," was what she said instead, "She knows nothing about anything to do with Brynn Wydd."

"She knows you, that's her unfortunate luck," Charlotte shot back. "Take her up to room number six and wait until you receive further instructions from me," Charlotte instructed two of the men in the room.

They left with Heidi, dragging her out, as she called out to Alex.

Justin Black looked at Charlotte with painfully obvious anticipation. Alex had a feeling that she knew exactly what it is he wanted from Charlotte.

Charlotte turned towards Alex. "He wants to kill you, Sasha," she told her, confirming her speculation. "Because you killed his friend, his mentor, and one of my best agents, Guy Donohue. Give me one reason why I shouldn't let him."

'_Because I'm your daughter? Because I've killed for you? Because I so desperately want to live to see my son and husband again?_' There were so many reasons to plead with Charlotte but she knew it would have been pointless, that her pleas would only serve to amuse her mother.

Charlotte's eyes pierced hers, waiting for a reply. Waiting for the pleading she expected.

Alex knew she looked as weary as she felt. That there were dark circles under her eyes and that she wasn't particularly adept at hiding her fear of what was to come. She desperately wanted to live. But she wouldn't give her mother the satisfaction of knowing that.

"Don't hold your breath if you're waiting for me to beg for my life," Alex said softly.

"You disappoint me Sasha, but that's nothing new." She moved towards the chair where she was sitting and cupped Alex's face into her hands. She kissed her daughter on the forehead, "Goodbye Sasha."

Then she raised her chin in Justin's direction. "She's all yours. Just make sure you don't leave any traces."

_Wildwind, Pine Valley, PA _

Dimitri held up Max, so he could feed the horse. "That's Calipha, my brother, Edmund's horse. She is getting old now, so we don't ride her much anymore. Do you like horses, Max?"

Max nodded, "I like horses. Our neighbour down the road had ponies and sometimes I went to feed them too."

As he looked at him, Dimitri realized he knew absolutely nothing about his son. What were his likes? His dislikes? Did he have any allergies? When did he learn to walk? How did he do in school? What does he want to be when he grows up? What is he afraid of? What makes him laugh? What makes him cry?

'I missed everything,' he realized. The thought filled him with a deep regret.

"Will you tell me about you and your Mom?" Dimitri asked him.

"Sure. What do you what to know?" Max asked him, petting the horse as he spoke.

'Everything,' Dimitri thought. "How is she, your Mom?"

Max shrugged, "She's fine, I guess. I'm sure Heidi is there with her, back home."

"Who's Heidi?" he asked.

"She's Mum's friend and my nanny. She's from Switzerland so she speaks English in a different way, kind of like you."

It made Dimitri smile to think his son thought he had an accent. Then he was serious again, "Did anyone ever…hurt your Mom?"

Max shook his head at the odd question, "No. Why do you ask me that?"

As he looked at Max's face, Dimitri was suddenly overcome by an awful sense of urgency and dread. He had to find Alex; he had to find her soon, before it was too late. He couldn't explain it but he felt it and he knew he had to trust his feelings this time. Alex's life might depend on them.

"I need you to tell me where you lived, Max. Can you do that?" He knelt down next to him, on the hay in the stable, so that he was at eye level with Max.

Max shook his head. "I can't. Mum made me promise not to tell you."

'Of course she would,' Dimitri thought. "Did she tell you why you couldn't tell me?"

"No, she just said I couldn't tell and that I can't break my promise."

Dimitri put his hand on Max's shoulder, "Let me tell you something Max, I know why she told you not to tell me. Because she knows how much I love her and she knows I'll go looking for her, even if it's dangerous for me."

"Why is it dangerous for you to look for her?" Max asked him, and Dimitri thought he saw a trace of doubt in the boy's eyes.

"Because she's in a lot of trouble for sending you here. It's why she sent you here, because she was afraid someone would take you away from her or someone might hurt you."

Max looked at him skeptically, "How do you know that?"

"I know because…because I know your mother," Dimitri didn't know how to explain it to him or to make him understand that he meant no harm. All he knew was that his sense of urgency kept getting stronger. "Please Max, you have to tell me where you and your Mom lived. Tell me the name of the town or they city? Or better, do you know an exact street address? You _have_ to tell me."

"If I tell you, Mum will be angry with me because I didn't keep my promise," Max tried to explain.

"Max, she didn't want you to tell me because for some reason she thinks my life and my safety are more important than her own. Do you think that too, Max?"

Max looked at him wide-eyed. "No," he said softly. The answer seemed to have made him feel uncomfortable as if he wasn't sure whether it was the right one, or the one Dimitri wanted to hear.

Dimitri embraced his son, "Good answer, Max, because I don't think so either. That's why I need you to help me find her. Help me bring her back to us."

Dimitri saw Max's struggle.

"Fine, I'll tell you," he finally decided. "But only if you take me with you, and you explain to her that you made me break my promise."

Dimitri wanted nothing more than to keep Max here at Wildwind, where he would be safe, but at the same time he admired Max's resolve. "Alright, you can come with me, but we're going to leave tonight. Are you up for that?"

"That's okay," Max told him, without the slightest hesitation.

When they arrived back at the house, Erica was about to leave.

"We're flying to Wales tonight," Dimitri told her. "I've called my pilot and asked him to fuel up the jet immediately."

Erica didn't look like she was ready for any more surprises, "Wales? And who's 'we' ?"

"Max and I."

She looked at him in disbelief, "You're taking the boy back to England? Are you crazy? Do you want to get both of you killed?"

Dimitri's eyes told her he didn't approve of her choice of words. "Of course not," he whispered to her, "He'll stay wherever we land, with the jet's flight crew."

She looked at him with a mix of hurt and determination, "Fine. I'm coming along too then."

He held up his hand in protest, "No, I won't let you be…"

She moved her own hand to his lips, "Yes, I am. You have no idea what you're going to find, darling, you might very well need a friend with you, and besides you need someone to look after Max."

His sense of dread was growing stronger and he knew he didn't have time to argue, "Fine. Let's go."


	17. Chapter 17

_**Chapter XVII **_

_Brynn Wydd, Wales _

'The time has finally come,' Justin thought, thinking of Guy, 'I can finally make her pay for what she did to you, and I'll do my best to make her suffer, I promise you.'

Justin Black had taken Alex back to her cottage, deciding that its isolation made it a perfect place to do the job. He had waited so long for this moment, over seven years, and now he wanted to relish every second of it in order to make it linger in his memory.

If he had wanted to, he could have killed her with one swift blow to the neck. Her martial arts skills were rudimentary compared to his own. But he wanted to make her fight him. To plead with him. The thought brought a smile to his face.

He had handcuffed her to her bed. "So you finally got your wish," she said to him, "I'm sure Guy would be so proud."

In spite of the handcuffs and the bed, Justin knew that Alex had no fear that he would rape her. He suspected that she had known what he kept secret from everyone, including Charlotte, for a long time. "He was more than just your mentor, wasn't he? Guy was your lover." She said it matter-of-factly as though his homosexuality was the most obvious thing in the world.

Justin glared at her. He wanted to strike her with every remark she made and he saw that Alex took some pleasure knowing it was taking every ounce of self-control he had, to refrain himself. He would leave her the pleasure now, because the last thing he wanted was to kill her too soon, without being able to savour the moment.

He took out a syringe and injected its contents into Alex's arm.

She cringed. "Poison, really? That can't be very rewarding for you."

It was a sedative and it would ensure him that she wouldn't have the speed or the energy to escape should anything go wrong. But at the same time it wasn't strong enough to prevent her from putting up a fight once he undid the handcuffs in a few hours. Justin knew her one advantage was that she was small and fast and he needed to make sure there was no way she could get away alive. Still, he wanted to keep the thrill of the chase alive. He wanted her well enough to challenge him.

"You're going to lose that attitude soon," he sneered.

While waiting for the drug to take effect, Justin decided to take a nap. He wanted to be suitably refreshed for what lay ahead.

Swa_nsea, Wales _

The flight from Pine Valley to Swansea had been smooth and fast with no delays. While en route, Dimitri had arranged to have a rental car waiting for him when he got off the jet.

"We're here. What are you going to do now?" Erica asked him after they touched down the runway, as Max looked on.

"I'm going to go to the address Max gave me. According to the map, it shouldn't be more than an hour and a half's drive from Swansea. If I don't call you from my cell phone within a couple of hours, I want you to send the police there," Dimitri whispered to Erica so that Max wouldn't hear.

Erica shook her head, baffled by his single-minded determination, "Please don't do anything reckless Dimitri."

He kissed her on the cheek, "Not a chance. Don't let Max out of your sight, please."

He bent down and kissed Max as well, "I'm going to bring your Mom here, and I'll tell her I made you break the promise, okay?"

"Okay."

He glanced back, looking at their serious faces once more, and then he grabbed his jacket and left the jet sitting on the tarmac of the airfield.

_Brynn Wydd Compound, Wales _

_Room #6_

Heidi watched as the two men in the room fought to keep their eyes open. It had been over two hours since Charlotte had ordered them to bring her here, and still there was no word of further instructions.

Heidi wasn't sure whether this was something to be grateful for or not. All she knew was that she was horribly uncomfortable in the chair into which they had forced her. Her hands were handcuffed and her wrists were sore. Her legs had fallen asleep and she desperately needed to use the bathroom.

She wondered about Philip, who would be worried sick looking for her by now, and she wondered too about Alex and Max. 'Please let them be alright,' she thought.

"What are you staring at?" one of the men asked her.

"Nothing." The last thing she wanted to do was irritate them.

"It didn't look like nothing to me," the agent was obviously bored and tired and needed to rile her in order to pass the time.

Heidi said nothing.

The man got up and stood next to her, "Hey, I'm talking to you."

Just as he moved closer, Charlotte entered the room, "What's going on here?" she asked, the expression on her face one of irritation.

The guard stood up straight, "Nothing ma'am."

Charlotte frowned at him and asked him to hand over his handgun to her, "I'd like you both to leave the room, and wait outside."

They did so without a word.

Charlotte had pondered the problem of Heidi for several hours before coming into the room. She wanted to avoid killing her, as dead bodies always created problems, especially with nearby spouses looking for them. But in the end she concluded that there really was no other way to ensure that the nanny remained silent. Heidi knew that Alexandra had worked for her as an agent and that she had ordered to have her killed. Those were two facts that could never leave this compound.

Granted Philip would conduct a search and her disappearance would make for sensational news in the local papers, Charlotte took comfort in the fact that Brynn Wydd was off limits to the local police, or any law enforcement agency, for that matter.

In a few days they'd find her body in a nearby lake and not long afterwards Heidi's death would be all but forgotten.

She decided to kill Heidi herself.

Doing so would give her agents something to talk about. It would cement her reputation as a fearless leader who was not afraid of getting her hands dirty. The kind of leader who commanded respect and obedience.

"We women always have to do everything twice as well, to be thought of as half as good, don't we?" she mused to Heidi.

Then she raised the gun and aimed it directly at Heidi.

Meanwhile, outside in the hallway, the guards heard the noise of a moving chair and then two bullets fired in quick succession.

They waited for several long minutes for Charlotte to come out of the room, before realizing that something must have gone horribly wrong.

They rushed into the room, weapons drawn.

_Alex's Cottage, Brynn Wydd, Wales _

Alex watched Justin sleep on the chair next to her as she felt herself become lethargic. Not having slept or eaten in the last 20 hours, the drug quickly made its way through her bloodstream. It would have been so easy to give in to the temptation of sleep. To go to sleep knowing she'd never wake up again.

'Oh no you don't,' she chided herself. 'You're not going to give up without a fight. You promised Max.'

Alex heard a watch alarm go off, and saw Justin wake up.

He walked up to her bedside, stretching himself. "This is it," he said with a smile of satisfaction, "I'm going to give you a chance to fight for your life."

He undid her handcuffs.

She looked at him angrily, "Coward. As if being twice my size doesn't give you enough of an advantage, you have to drug me."

In one quick movement, she took off her watch, strapped it around her fingers, and struck him in the face with it.

The action caught Justin off guard and left him with a bloody scratch right below the eyes. He obviously didn't think she would as fast or as hard.

Without waiting for him to realize what she had done, she jumped off the bed and ran past him, towards the doors.

She felt as though her legs were made of lead and that her movements were in slow motion. 'You can do this,' she thought. 'I just have to get to the gun in the cabinet downstairs. Think of Max.'

She ran down the stairs and felt Justin grab her from behind. Instead of grabbing her, he pushed her and lost his footing, sending both of them tumbling down the staircase together.

_Near Brynn Wydd, Wales _

Dimitri cursed when he realized he'd taken a wrong turn. As if driving on the left side of the road wasn't enough to confuse him, he noticed that every hill he passed looked exactly the same as the previous one.

He saw a young girl on a red bicycle pass by next to him, and stopped to ask her for directions. She pointed to the curving road ahead of him and told him to make a sharp left turn as soon as he passed the footbridge that led over the creek.

He thanked her and hurriedly rolled up his window again. He was so close to the address Max had given him. 'What if she's really there?' he thought to himself. It was a thought that left him nervous, afraid, and ecstatic at the same time.

'What if she's not there? What then?' He didn't want to consider that possibility because he had no idea what he'd do next. There was no plan. There was only a desperate need to follow his instincts. And they had led him here.

The sense of dread and urgency he had felt at Wildwind came back again, with an almost overwhelming force, enveloping him like a blanket of cold air.

He pressed on the gas pedal and forced the car to speed up.

_Alex's Cottage, Brynn Wydd, Wales _

The fall down the staircase, had knocked the wind out of both Justin and Alex, and for a moment there was a dead silence in the cottage as both of them struggled to regain their bearings.

Justin had taken the harder fall by virtue of his body weight. He moaned in pain, lying on the bottom with Alex on top of him.

Alex struggled to break free from his grasp and make her way towards the cabinet that held her handgun.

The thought that he had cushioned her fall filled Justin with renewed rage. He watched her get up and stumble like a drunk towards the cabinet.

He saw her pick up a handgun and clumsily attempt to load it, with shaking hands.

In spite of a searing pain that shot up his entire left side, he managed to get up and knock the gun out of her hand.

"I don't think so…" he told her. She tried to retrieve the weapon, but she was too slow and Justin too fast. He picked her up and threw her into the liquor cabinet, the back of her head breaking the glass into a hundred pieces.

He watched her slump to the ground, crying out in pain.

At first Alex thought she was going to pass out, when the impact with the glass knocked the wind out of her but instead the resulting pain renewed her alertness. It was strong enough to conquer the effects of the sedative.

She was lying on the floor with Justin on top of her and she saw him pull out a knife.

He was about to stab her, when she jerked her knees into his groin making him collapse to his side.

Alex made an effort to get up and get to the gun, but this time the combination of the sedative and her head injury made the room spin around her. She tried to find the gun by other means, crawling to it on her hands and knees. She spotted it, lying next to the sofa, and was about to reach for it, when she felt the razor sharp edge of Justin's knife stab her in the back.

It tore though her body with such force it nearly paralyzed her.

This was it, she realized. It was over. After everything she'd gone through, it would end like this, with Justin's brute force triumphing over her determination.

_At least Max got away. Max is with Dimitri. That's all that matters in the end. I did one thing right. I kept him safe. _

As he pulled out the blade, he turned her around and stabbed her once more, directly into her chest.

"I want you to see my face when you die," he said and stabbed her again. His voice was raspy from the obvious pain he was in and his face was now covered in blood from where her watch and fist had originally struck him.

As he uttered those words, a man entered the room and gasped in disbelief at the gruesome scene that was taking place before him.

Alex thought she was dreaming, "Dimitri…?"

_It couldn't be. He couldn't be here. She WAS dreaming. Dying. Dreaming. Maybe they were one and the same. Maybe heaven was a dream. _

"Oh God…" Dimitri watched as the man was about to plunge the knife into Alex once more and then he saw the gun lying on the floor.

Justin saw what Dimitri saw and both men leapt for the gun at the same time.

Slowed down by his injuries, Justin watched in shock as Dimitri picked up the gun and fired it directly at this chest.

It was the last thing he saw, before collapsing on the floor in a heap.

Dimitri dropped the gun as quickly as he had picked it up and rushed towards Alex, lying on the floor, beside Justin.

"Dimitri…is it really you?" she reached for him, smiling, delirious. She touched his face with a bloodied hand.

He held her hand against his cheek, "It's going to be okay, darling, I promise you."

Alex didn't care that he was a figment of her imagination. His voice was so real, it was the most wonderful sound she had ever heard. "Don't leave me, please, I don't want to die alone."

Dimitri noticed she was breathing with difficulty, coughing with the effort. "You're not going to die, darling, and I'm never going to leave you again. But you have to hold on, for Max…and for me."

Her torso was blood-soaked. Dimitri took off his jacket and draped it around her waist in an attempt to slow the flow of blood.

Dimitri had never felt as desperately helpless and afraid, as he did at that moment. He tried to dial for help on his cell phone with trembling hands before realizing it was pointless. That there was no transmission out here amidst the countless hills.

Normally, he knew better than to move an injured body, but, in this case, he decided he had no other choice.

He picked Alex up with ease, shocked at how light she felt in his arms. He cradled her against him and walked as quickly and gently as possible towards his car.

He had wanted so much to hold her in his arms again.

'But not like this,' he thought, 'Oh God, not like this.'

He laid her down on the back seat of the car and she moaned in pain at the movement.

He squeezed her hand, wishing there was some way he could ease her pain, "I'm going to get you to a hospital, but you have to hang in there. Please darling, hang on. For me and Max."

He pushed down on the gas pedal, and for the first time in his life, Dimitri drove above the speed limit. He saw that the clothes he wore were now covered in her blood.

By the time he reached the hospital that he had seen on his way to the cottage, Alex was unconscious and he carried her into emergency room himself.

"Help me, someone! Please, someone help me, right away!" he yelled in the hallway.

The emergency room of the local hospital was small and quiet, and the two doctors on duty had a shocked expression on their face when they saw a man walk in, carrying a woman covered in blood.

"Here! Put her here!" one of the doctors told him. He pulled out a bed and together with the other doctor they pushed her out of Dimitri's view into the only room he saw.

"Where are you taking her?" he asked breathlessly, as he followed them into the room.

A nurse stopped him in the process, "I'm sorry sir, that's the operating room. You can't go in there."

Dimitri brushed her off, "I can't leave her. I promised her…"

"Sir, you cannot go in there," she told him, more firmly this time.

"I _have_ to be with her!" How could he make them understand that he said he wouldn't let her die alone? 'Stop it!' he thought. 'She's not going to die.'

The nurse looked at him with concern. "Sir, if you go in there you're only going to make things difficult for the team that's in there with her. I'll have to call security. Do you want me to do that?" she asked him, gently.

"No." Dimitri shook his head without looking at her. "Please don't let her die."

"They're going to do whatever they can for her."

"That's not good enough," he told her, "They have to do whatever it takes. Because I can't lose her again. Not again."

The nurse brought him a glass of water, and left him seated, alone, in the hospital corridor.

Dimitri stared at his bloodstained clothes. He was covered in her blood. He took off his Omega watch and clasped it in his hands reading the inscription again, '_A love for all time. A_.'

'_A love for all time_,' the words echoed through his mind.

Dimitri waited, for what felt like an eternity.

It was hours later when Dimitri felt a sudden and inexplicable draft of cold air chill his body. He shivered and glanced at his watch once more. In the corner of his eye, he saw a doctor come out of the operating room and at the very moment, he noticed something else.

He saw that the hands on his watch stood still.


	18. Chapter 18

_**Chapter XVIII **_

_Livingston District Hospital, Wales _

Heidi was barely conscious when the postal truck brought her to the same hospital into which Dimitri had carried Alex several hours earlier.

She tried to remember the events that had brought her here, but the effort alone seemed to aggravate the pain in her shoulder.

She remembered sitting in the room at the Brynn Wydd compound, handcuffed to a chair when Charlotte entered, aiming a handgun directly at her.

As she was about to shoot, Heidi had jumped from the chair, knocking down Charlotte in the process, slamming into her with the full force of her weight. Then she had felt the indescribable pain of a bullet tearing though her shoulder, as she fell to the floor. At the same time she picked up the gun that Charlotte had dropped and, holding it with both hands, had shot her, in the middle of her body.

She could still vividly remember Charlotte's shocked expression as she lay on the floor, blood dripping from her mouth. She had said something to her then but Heidi couldn't hear the words.

Then she remembered the two agents entering the room and pointing her gun at them.

_Did I shoot them?_

Heidi wasn't sure anymore, thinking she couldn't possibly have. 'I've never even held a gun in my hands, how could I kill someone?'

She remembered the piercing sound of sirens going off in the building and people running towards the room she had left. She wasn't sure anymore how she got out of the building or where she had dropped the gun, she only remembered walking along the road and a postal truck stopping dead in its tracks when the driver saw her bloody shoulder and staggering gait.

Now she was in the hospital, waiting for a doctor when she saw a tall, dark haired man seated a feet away from her. His clothes were covered in blood, and Heidi saw him clutching a watch in hands.

It was the last thing she saw before everything went dark.

"I can't believe it, two trauma victims in one night, I feel like one of those nurses on those American doctor shows," Dimitri heard an elderly nurse say, followed by a short nervous laugh.

He observed her and two other nurses wheeling a large, blond haired woman into a room further down the hallway.

Then he heard a door opening and the sound of high heels running down the corridor.

"Dimitri! Oh, thank God!" It was Erica. She ran up to him, breathlessly, and embraced him. "When you didn't call after three hours, I sent the police to the address you gave me, and they said they found a dead man there! Shot to death! Oh, Dimitri, I was worried sick!"

"Erica, where's Max?" Dimitri noticed that he was not with her.

"He's outside with the police officer. I called several hospitals, I was frantic…" she looked at him and her eyes opened in shock as she suddenly noticed the state he was in, "Oh Dimitri, your clothes, they're full of blood. You look terrible…what happened? Did you find Alex?"

He nodded and before he had a chance to say anything, he saw Max coming towards him.

Max looked at him with wide eyes, as though scared of what Dimitri might say. "Did you find my Mum?", he asked.

"Come here," he pulled Max towards him with the last ounce of energy he had left, and spoke to him softly. "I did find your Mom. But when I did someone was trying to hurt her."

Max didn't understand. "Why would anyone want to hurt Mom?"

Dimitri eyes had the same uncomprehending look, "I don't know, Max. I really don't know."

"Is it because I broke my promise?" Max's eyes were fearful.

Dimitri shook his head, "No Max, in fact, if you hadn't broken your promise I wouldn't have found her when I did, and she wouldn't be here with us now. You saved her life Max."

Max wasn't sure whether to believe him. "I want to see her," he said firmly.

Dimitri stroked his arm, "Not yet. Maybe tomorrow. But for now she needs to rest and she can't see anyone, not even you and me, okay?"

"Is she going to be okay?" his son asked him.

For the first time that evening, Dimitri managed a smile, "Yeah, she's going to be okay."

_The next day_

Erica Kane went back to the hospital the next morning, bringing with her a cup of hot coffee, a sandwich and a clean shirt.

Dimitri hadn't left the hospital. Erica watched as he slept, uncomfortably, in a chair, next to Alex's bed. He wore a green surgical scrub that one of the nurses must have given him, and even in his sleep one of his hands held on to Alex.

Erica woke him as gently as she could. "Good morning," she whispered, "I thought you could use some sustenance." She handed him the coffee and the sandwich she had bought.

Dimitri took them gratefully, "Thank you."

Erica glanced towards Alex, "How is she?"

He took a bite of his roll, "Better. They almost lost her last night, Erica. She went into some kind of shock from the blood loss and then into cardiac arrest. One of the doctors was leaving the OR when it happened…I know this is going to sound strange, but at the exact same time that her heart stopped, the watch Alex gave me stopped."

"That's eerie." Erica looked at him, pensively, not knowing what else to say. "Do you think it means something?"

Dimitri shrugged his shoulders, "I don't know. I just know that when I looked at the watch hands standing still…I thought my own heart would stop beating."

Erica pursed her lips, her cheeks reddening. "Hmm…"

Dimitri then realized what he was sharing with her, "I'm sorry, I'm rambling."

"You're exhausted, that's what it is. Why don't you come to the hotel with me, and get some actual sleep before Max wants to come here and see her," she suggested.

"How is he?" Dimitri asked her.

"Better than you, darling. Come let's go," she held out her hand.

Dimitri shook his head, unable to meet her eyes. "I'm sorry, I can't leave yet. The doctors said she might wake up in a few hours and I want to be here when she does."

It was what Erica was afraid he would say. She observed the way he looked at Alex. A look that was somehow different from any he had ever given her.

She knew in her heart of hearts, what it really was that she had come here to do, but she wanted to prolong it as long as possible, desperately seeking some small indication from Dimitri, that would convince not to do it.

"What exactly happened to her?" she asked trying to stall the inevitable.

"I don't know exactly, but someone tried to kill her by doing the maximum damage they could in the process. The doctors say she has several broken ribs, a punctured lung, a concussion, and that it's a small miracle the knife wounds didn't cause major organ damage," there was a barely subdued rage in his voice when he told her what he knew.

"Well," Erica realized her own voice was getting shaky, "I guess I can't really compete with that, can I? Alex was ready to die rather than risk your life."

Dimitri finally took his eyes off Alex and looked at Erica, taken aback. "It was never a competition, Erica."

Erica almost laughed at the accuracy of that statement.

Dimitri got up and put his arms around her, "I never would have asked you to marry me if I didn't love you, you have to know that. But this…how could I ever have imagined that things would turn out like this?"

She moved a finger over his lips, "Please don't say anything else." She bit her lip to stop it from trembling.

'If anyone can do this with dignity, it's Erica Kane,' she thought.

"I didn't just come here to bring you coffee. I came to give you something else as well." She slipped her engagement ring off her finger and handed it to him. "I want to give this back to you."

"Erica, what are you doing?"

In spite of her efforts, Erica felt tears rolling down her cheeks as she realized what she was doing. "You know I was never Alex's biggest fan, and I don't think the two of us will ever be friends. In another time, I would have fought her for you. You're worth it, Dimitri. But when I see the way you look at her, I realize that the two of you have something that you and I will never have. You have a bond with her that I can't describe but I've felt it ever since Max showed up at Wildwind…it's something rare and beautiful. It's…an unbreakable bond. And I…I truly hope you never lose it." Erica felt her words choke, "I love you so much Dimitri. If I didn't I wouldn't be able to do this…"

Dimitri looked at her gently, his warm eyes wanting to make this easy for her; apologetic for the pain he was causing her.

'I'm never going to see those eyes next to me again when I wake up in the morning.' The thought was more than she could bear. She grabbed her purse and ran out of the hospital room.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, knowing she wouldn't be able to hear him. He hadn't wanted this. Hadn't wanted to cause her so much pain, but at the same time he felt gratitude. He was grateful that she knew what he himself was only starting to realize.

He sat back down in the chair, and heard Alex stir next to him.

She opened her eyes slowly, trying to focus on Dimitri.

"Dimitri…it really is you," her voice was barely a whisper. "I was wrong…it wasn't a dream after all."

Dimitri smiled as he reached to touch her face, "Who else could have found you with such cryptic instructions?"

He thought he saw the corner of her lips curl into a weak smile, "My hero." She wanted to say something else but the effort made her cough instead.

"Shh…don't talk. Just rest and when you wake up again, I'll still be here." Dimitri couldn't help but hold on to her, thinking that maybe his touch would give her strength.

"Max?" she asked him.

"He's fine. He's here too, and he's safe."

He brushed a strand of her hair from her forehead, away from the bandages that covered part of it. As he did, he saw her frown and move her hands towards her waist.

Her gesture reminded Dimitri of a phrase he had once read somewhere, 'You know you love someone when it physically hurts you to see her in pain.'

"Does it hurt a lot?" he asked, afraid of the answer.

She shook her head and managed to grasp his hand, with a strength that surprised him. "No," she whispered, before closing her eyes again, " Not anymore."

_Two days later_

It was Max, who first saw Heidi, walking through the hospital hallway, while he was flipping through a comic book next to Alex's bed.

He dropped the book and, much to Dimitri's surprise, ran out, past the armed guards, to greet her.

"Heidi!" he ran up to her and embraced her with a squeal.

Her shoulder was bandaged, her entire left arm was in a sling, and Philip's arm was around her as she walked down the hallway.

"Max! What are you doing here?" she couldn't believe her eyes, seeing him in front of her. "You're supposed to be with your Dad in America."

Max was grinning from ear to ear, "He came back here to get Mum, and I made him take me with him."

"Your Mum is here?"

Heidi had walked past the room with the guards more than once the past two days, thinking it must be a dangerous prisoner of sorts, who was inside.

"Come in," Max pulled Heidi and Philip into the room. The guards wouldn't let them past the door, until Max called out to Dimitri.

"It's okay," Max explained to him. "This is Heidi, my nanny, and Philip, her husband."

Dimitri motioned an approval to the guards, "It's fine."

Heidi was shocked to see Alex, heavily bandaged with a series of cuts running down both sides of her face. She rushed to embrace her, "Oh Alex, what did he do to you?"

Alex hugged her happily, "I'm going to be fine. What about you?"

"Charlotte shot me in the shoulder. I managed to get out of the chair and push her down to the ground."

Alex's face was anxious now, "Tell me what happened!"

Dimitri wasn't sure whether he liked the idea of Alex upsetting herself. "Hey, what's going on here," he interrupted, "What happened to introductions?"

"I'm sorry, of course…Heidi this is Dimitri," she smiled at her, "My husband. And Dimitri, this is Heidi… my best friend."

Heidi shook his hand, and pointed to the large man with the curly hair that stood by her side, "This is my husband, Philip."

"It's a pleasure to meet you both. Alex told me so much about you in the past two days.'' He shook hands with him also.

"Heidi, please tell me what happened," Alex insisted.

"Darling, I don't think this is a good idea," Dimitri told her.

"Dimitri, I need to know!"

He had forgotten how stubborn she could be, "Fine, but if I see you getting stressed, the conversation ends. The doctor said…"

Dimitri stopped himself in mid-sentence when he saw Max looking at all of them. Philip caught on right away and took his hand, "Come on Max, let's go to the gift shop and see if we can find a sticky bun. I don't know about you, but I'm starving."

Max frowned, realizing it was a ploy to get him out of the room, but he played along and left the room with Philip.

After he was gone, Heidi began to recount the events as best as she remembered them.

"So you shot her, point black?" Alex asked.

"Yes." Heidi nodded, "She was lying on the floor, bleeding. And when the men came into the room they hovered over her, barely paying me any attention."

"Of course," Alex tried to picture the scene, "Trying to revive her would have been their only priority. That was probably why you were able to get away, because their only focus was Charlotte."

"I don't remember how I got away, Alex. I might have killed them. I honestly don't know." Guilt and confusion mingled on her face.

"They would not have hesitated to kill you given the chance," Alex tried to comfort her. "Keep that in mind."

" I think it's safe to say that Charlotte is dead," Dimitri added.

"Do you really think that she is?" Heidi asked him.

"People don't survive point blank shots to the chest. Not even Charlotte Devane."

Alex wanted to believe him but she knew better than to underestimate her mother. "How can you be sure? We weren't there. We have no idea what kind of damage the bullet did."

"She's only human," Dimitri reasoned, wanting her to believe him, not because he necessarily believed it himself, but for the comfort he knew it would bring her.

"I'll believe it when I see her dead body in front of me," she said softly, both unconvinced and shaken by the uncertain news.

"I think…" Dimitri made her lie back down, "That you should try and sleep, and not worry about something that's out of our control."

Heidi saw what he was doing, "He's right. You look tired. I will come back and see you later."

Heidi kissed her cheek and left the room.

Dimitri stayed, waiting until Alex fell asleep, wondering what their future held in store. Wondering what it would bring if he was wrong. If Charlotte Devane hadn't died.


	19. Chapter 19

_**Chapter XIX **_

_Livingston District, Wales _

_Three weeks later_

Dimitri, Alex, and Max sat in the small but crowded bleachers of the local soccer stadium, watching the audience go wild as the home team scored its first goal. Max, too, much to Dimitri's surprise, joined them in the excitement, jumping up and down as soon as the ball flew into the net.

It was the first time the three of them had gone out together for anything more than a short stroll.

"These people are insane," Dimitri whispered to Alex as he watched the frenzy. "And they include our son."

Alex laughed, "You haven't seen anything yet."

"Mum, I just saw Roger and Paul, down below, can I join them?" Max asked Alex, still breathless from his cheering.

"Sure, as long as we can see you."

Dimitri was about to motion one of the nearby guards to follow Max, but he didn't have to. The man was already on his way to where Max was going.

Alex eyed the guard following Max. She leaned against Dimitri, ignoring the game on the field. "You can't keep us under guard for the rest of our lives, you know," she pointed out.

Dimitri wrapped his arm around her, "Why not? If that's what it takes to keep you safe."

"It's madness," she protested. "Where did you find these guys anyway? I've never seen anyone look as serious as these men."

"They're ex-Secret Service. The one who's with Max used to be one of Reagan's bodyguards," Dimitri explained.

"If Charlotte were still alive and she wanted me dead, she would have done it by now," Alex told him. "A handful of bodyguards wouldn't be the slightest deterrent to her if she wanted me dead."

He grabbed a bunch of peanuts and put them in his mouth. "You don't know that, darling. Here," he said, offereing some to her.

Alex shook her head.

"The doctor said you have to eat more."

Alex gave him an amused grin, "Were peanuts were at the top of his list?"

He put one in her mouth, "Peanuts are full of something or other…"

"Protein. Peanuts are full of protein. But I don't like them. I'll get something else."

Dimitri was about to get up, "What do you want? I'll get it for you."

She put her hand on his shoulder, nudging him back down. "Don't be silly, I'll get it." She got up, too quickly, and Dimitri saw her stumble and move a hand to her head.

He put his arms around her and helped her sit back down, "Hey, what was that?"

She suddenly looked very pale. "It's nothing…I just stood up too fast."

"Maybe this is too much. The noise and the crowds. Let's get Max and take you back to the hotel."

"No, really. I'm fine. I wanted to come here today, with you and Max. And the game barely started."

"You don't look fine," Dimitri's countered, his expression firm. "I'm taking you back."

"Dimitri, stop it!" Alex protested. "If you keep treating me like an invalid, I'm going to lose my mind. I'm a doctor, I should know when I'm fine or not."

Dimitri looked at her in disbelief. "Three weeks ago you almost died in my arms after I had lost you for seven years. How can you ask me to let you take chances with your health?"

"I'm not taking any chances, darling…I just…" she hadn't wanted to tell him this, knowing it might make him even more protective. "I have something called acquired hemolytic anemia. It's nothing serious or progressive, it just means I have a low red blood cell count, and sometimes I get tired easily, or if I get up too quickly, it makes me feel lightheaded."

He stared at her, his gaze questioning what else she hadn't told him in order to curb his fears. "Anemia? Why didn't you tell me?"

"There's nothing to tell, really. It's like someone who has to live with migraines. It's a nuisance but it's not going to kill me."

"How…how did you get it?"

"There's not one exact cause. It can be caused by a variety of factors including blood loss…"

"You mean you got this as a result of your injuries?"

She shook her head, "No, I had it before you brought me to the hospital. It's partially why I went into cardiac arrest, due to hypovolemic shock."

"So, losing blood could kill you?" he probed.

When she didn't answer immediately, his eyes narrowed in concern. "Tell, me, Alex."

For someone unschooled in medicine, Alex marveled how he somehow drew the exact conclusions she tried keep from him.

"Sure. Losing blood could kill me," she retorted. "It could kill you too, or anyone in this stadium, for that matter."

"That's not what I meant, and you know it."

She kissed him, ignoring the renewed cheers of the crowd as the home team scored another goal, "Yes, I have to be extra careful, but I assure you I have no plans on having any accidents in the near future."

"And one day maybe you'll tell me what caused you to lose enough blood to make you anemic," he said softly. It wasn't a question, and if it were, Alex wasn't sure he could handle the answer.

Dimitri cupped her face in his hands. "I love you so much. I just want to take care of you, the way you took care of me when I was ill. Is that so hard to understand?"

She shook her head. "No, it's not. I just don't want you to think that you're going to lose me, because it's not going to happen."

He was about to kiss her again, when he saw Max running up the bleachers, with his two friends.

"Did you watch that goal?" he asked Dimitri, "Wasn't it amazing?"

Dimitri nodded, "Oh yeah…fantastic."

Max didn't notice the lack of detail in Dimitri's answer, making Alex grin. He seemed to have more pressing things in mind. Max turned to his friends, and then at Dimitri.

"Dad, I want you meet my friends, Roger and Paul."

"It's nice to meet you," Dimitri held out his hand to the two boys, who shook it enthusiastically. Before he had a chance to say anything else, the three of them ran off and returned to their seats on the other side of the stadium.

Alex smiled when she saw Dimitri's grin.

"Did you hear that?" he asked her, unable to stop smiling. "He called me 'Dad'."

"I guess you better get used to it," she told him.

"It's the first time he's said it."

"It won't be the last."

Dimitri was still grinning, and he grabbed a hold of Alex's hand. "Come, let's go…"

"Where…?" For a moment Alex thought he was going to be adamant about taking her back to the hotel.

He looked at her with amusement, "To get something to eat, other than peanuts."

_Later that evening_

Dimitri closed the door of Max's room and made his way back into the room that he shared with Alex.

"Is he asleep?" she asked him.

Dimitri smiled, "I didn't even read him two pages before his eyes closed. I think that soccer game wiped him out and he didn't even play!"

"It's intense if you're a real fan."

"That he is…" he moved over to his wife and kissed her.

"Hmm…what was that for?"

He smiled, "Nothing. And everything."

He took her hairbrush out of her hand and started brushing her hair. He noticed a scar, no more than two inches long, run along the side of her forehead. The doctor had said it would likely be permanent. The glass that cut her was too thick and the cut was too deep.

It made him shiver each time he looked at it because it was a constant reminder of the fragility of life. The fragility of _her_ life.

He bent down and kissed her scar. Alex turned around and looked at him, "It's a beautiful night outside, are you up for a walk?"

"You're asking me?"

He got her jacket and they headed outside. One guard followed them at a short distance; another remained stationed outside of Max's room.

It was a crystal clear evening, and Dimitri thought he could see every star in the universe lit up above them in the night sky.

They sat down at a bench, and Dimitri lit a cigar. There was a cool fall breeze in the air and he watched as Alex tried to keep her long, windswept hair out of her face.

The gesture made him laugh. "I have to admit," he said, "When I first lost you what I missed most was moments like this…moments where we did nothing really, but which meant more to me than I could ever put into words. Moments where one look into your eyes could make me forget about everything else in the world."

"You're a hopeless romantic."

He laughed, "But there's more…being here with you tonight makes me realize something else I forgot."

"And what's that?"

"I forgot how beautiful you are."

He thought he saw her blush in the moonlight. "Well then, you're a lucky man, Dimitri Marick."

"Tell me about it." He exhaled the smoke and stared into the night sky, serious. "The doctor said it was alright for us to head back to the States now. Do you think you're ready for Wildwind and for all the shocked faces that'll meet us there?"

"I'm not sure if anyone can ever be ready for _that_," she admitted. "I won't miss Wales, but I'll miss Heidi."

"She'll have to come and visit. Often."

He moved one of his arms around her waist; "Then again, I'm not sure if I'm ready to share you with the whole world just yet."

"Nobody knows yet, do they?" she asked him, serious too now.

"No. I asked Erica to not tell anyone. I want them to see you and Max in person. It's not the kind of news to break over the phone." He had told Alex about Erica. How they had fallen in love again and ultimately about their engagement. He had wondered how she would take it all, whether she would hate that he had gone on with life, gone so far as to find love again, all while she had fought to keep their son from Charlotte's clutches.

Much to his surprise, Alex didn't seem bothered by it in the least, and more surprisingly she had already known. "I read the papers and scoured the Internet whenever I had the chance. I knew about your thriving diamond business, and I also knew you about your engagement. It hurt, of course it hurt, I'd be lying if I said it didn't, because I wanted so much to be the one at your side…but at the same time, I was happy to know that you were living life to the fullest. It gave me a kind of piece of mind, if that makes sense. I would never have expected you to mourn me forever."

The one thing that did surprise Alex was that Erica Kane had relinquished the love of her life so graciously, and so easily. "She gave you back the ring? Really? _Erica Kane_? I may have to stop by and thank her personally, once we're back in Pine Valley," she had told him.

"They're all going to be shocked," she said now, bringing him back to the present. "Your dead wife coming back… with your unknown son in tow."

"Not shocked," he corrected her. "Edmund, Brooke, Gillian, Eugenia, Sam, Maddie, they're all going to be _ecstatic_ to see you again. Once we're back and have Max in school, I've decided I'm going to take a year off."

"A year? Really? Can you do that?"

"Who will stop me? I haven't taken more than two days off at a time in years. I'm overdue for a break. I want to spend time with you and Max. I want to get to know my son, to take him fishing and riding and out to football games. I want to have dinner with him every night and help him with his homework, and watch him fall asleep."

He turned to face her, "And I don't want to spend a single day away from you."

"You'll get sick of me…" she teased him.

He pulled her towards him, "Never. Not a chance." He brushed her hair back and leaned in to kiss her. "And then, when you're well enough and when you're up to it, I want you to head the Andrassy Foundation."

She raised her eyebrows, taken aback. "The Andrassy Foundation? I…I don't know what to say…it's grown so much in seven years. I don't know, Dimitri, if I could possibly do it justice, or if I'm even remotely the best choice to head it."

"I won't take no for an answer. And yes, you are without a doubt the best person to head it, because you were its inspiration."

"I love the faith you have in me, but I'm not sure I share it. I haven't practiced medicine in more than half a decade…I haven't written a single paper in years."

"You've kept up with the latest research, perhaps even more so than if you had been at home in Pine Valley," he argued.

"For all the wrong reasons," she mumbled. He saw her pull her shawl over her jacket, as if cold. "If you knew…" she stopped herself. "Maybe you'd agree I'm not the best person for this." She didn't say anything else, turning her gaze away from his.

She had told him bit and pieces of what her life as Charlotte's agent had entailed, over the last seven years, but as much as Dimitri had wanted to know more, he hadn't pressed her. Part of him wasn't sure he really wanted to know, and another part of him didn't want her to tell him because he knew it would hurt her more to say it than to have him hear it.

They had a long way to go before their lives would start to resemble some sort of normalcy, Dimitri knew. But it didn't matter, they'd get there somehow, he knew that too.

"Hey…" he moved his hand under her chin, turning her face towards him. "You don't have to do it a day before you're ready, but don't turn it down because you're doubting yourself." He draped his jacket over hers and took her hand in his. "It's getting cold outside. Let's head back to the hotel, and tomorrow we'll start packing, and make our way home."


	20. Chapter 20

_**Chapter XX **_

_Time is the enemy of love.  
The thief that shortens all our golden hours.  
I have never understood then  
Why lovers count their happiness,  
In days and nights and years,  
While our love can only be measured  
In our joys and sighs and tears_

_Wildwind, Pine Valley, PA _

Alex took a deep breath, fiddling nervously with her watch and hesitating a long moment, before stepping through the doors of Wildwind.

"Don't be nervous darling, it's just Brooke and Edmund," Dimitri told her for the third time. He had decided to tell them first and letting the rest of the family find out afterwards.

"You're not the one who's been dead for seven years," she replied, her voice shaky at the thought of seeing them again. Max sensed her unease and took hold of one of her hands as she stepped into the living room of Wildwind.

It was Brooke who first saw her. She was holding a glass of brandy, which she promptly dropped to the floor.

"Alex? Oh my god…it can't be." Edmund had to catch her as she swooned. Even as he held on to Brooke, Edmund too could not help but stare at Alex.

"You see why I couldn't tell you this over the phone," Dimitri announced to both of them, somewhat apologetically.

Alex rushed over to Brooke helping her sit down as she told her to take deep, even breaths. Oddly enough, making sure that Brooke didn't pass out helped Alex forget her own nervousness.

Once she had regained her composure, Edmund was the first to embrace Alex. "It really is you," he hugged her cautiously, as if she were fragile, and Alex squeezed his arm with a grin. "It's okay, it really is me. And I won't break. Promise."

Edmund returned her grin, "I'm in shock…and I don't know what to say. But it's a good shock."

Max stared at the four strangers in the room uneasily.

Dimitri put his arms around Max's shoulders and pulled him into the fray, "This is Maximillian Dimitri. Our son."

Edmund stared at the boy, "Of course you are. You look just you're your Mom." He shook Max's hand and then pulled him into a hug as well. "Welcome to the family, Max."

Brooke was still shaken at the sight of both of them, "I…uh, I don't know what to say. This is so incredible…I… I'm just glad Stella had the cooks prepare a four course meal,'' she laughed nervously, "because I have a feeling we'll be taking a very long time to finish dinner tonight."

She moved towards Alex and embraced her, "Oh Alex…welcome home, honey. We missed you."

Overcome by the emotion in the room, Alex felt the tears well up in her eyes. It had been too long since she'd been part of a family. "Thank you. It feels good to be home."

Dimitri led Max into the dining room, "First we'll eat and then we all have some explanations for you."

Edmund laughed, "I bet. And somewhere among them they're going to be an "I told you so", isn't there?" He put one arm around Brooke and another around Alex, and together they made their way into the dining room.

_Wildwind Estate, Pine Valley_

_Three months later_

"Here," Dimitri handed Max his riding gear, "Take this to the stables, I'll meet you and your Mom in the dining room in half an hour, alright?"

"Okay Dad." His cheeks were red from the cold air outside. Max took the gear and ran off to the stables, one of the guards watching him carefully from a distance.

As he walked through Wildwind, on the way to the bedroom for a change of clothes, Dimitri caught a glimpse of Alex in the study, poring over something or other.

He liked watching her concentrate on her work because it meant she was focusing on the future rather than the past.

During the past three months, Dimitri had come to realize just how frighteningly strong Charlotte's hold on Alex had been.

Physically she had recovered beautifully, even though her anemia left her weaker than she admitted. However, the emotional scars of seven years of living inside Charlotte's twisted world were a different matter.

Dimitri had expected her experience to have psychological ramifications. What he hadn't expected was the severity and frequency of her nightmares. Or that she would be so resistant to outside help.

"_I can't talk to a shrink about this, please understand. I was an assassin for seven years. It's not something you talk about on a doctor's couch."_

"_You can't deal with everything on your own." _

"_I can and I will. There's no other way." _

If she refused professional help, then Dimitri was determined to make up for it with his own support. Although sometimes he questioned whether he really was strong enough for both of them.

There were countless nights when Alex woke up screaming, soaked in perspiration, haunted by the faces of the men she had killed. Other nights she was terrified of Charlotte coming back for him and Max, and there would be silent tears running down her face.

Often he would hear her, after she was startled awake, trying to sneak out of the bedroom in order not to wake him. But it rarely worked. He'd turned into a light sleeper these days. And often he wouldn't need to hear her, as much as he could sense her unease next to him.

"_I'm sorry…" she'd whisper. _

"_Don't apologize for this. Never." _

"_I keep waking you up…I keep disrupting our life with this."_

"_You are my life."_

"Do you want to talk about it?" he had asked, again, two nights ago.

"No."

He wasn't sure whether the answer would ever be yes. But he liked to remind her that it could be. That whenever she was ready, he'd listen. So he kept asking. For now though, holding her and making her realize he wasn't leaving, was all he could do and he hoped it was enough.

Some nights it broke his heart to see her struggle with the aftermath of the last seven years, and others it filled him with rage towards Charlotte Devane.

Alex had a god-given talent for healing and Charlotte had forced her to kill. Charlotte couldn't have come up with a better way to torment her daughter, had she tried. For that, Dimitri hated her more than anything. 'I hope for your sake that you're dead,' he often swore silently to Charlotte, 'Because if I ever see you, believe me, I'll make you wish you had died.'

Back in the present, Dimitri entered the study at Wildwind, and saw that it wasn't the latest issue of some obscure medical journal Alex was poring over but an invitation.

She took off her glasses when she saw him, and motioned for him to sit down.

"How were the riding lessons with Max?"

Dimitri poured himself a cognac and pulled up a chair next to her, "He's going to ride just like his father one day."

Alex raised her eyebrows, "Oh no…poor Max. I'll have to take him out myself next, so we can prevent that."

"Funny. He should be so lucky, to ride as well as me."

Alex moved over and kissed him, tasting the cognac on his lips, "Hmm…nice." She handed him the invitation, "Take a look at this."

"What is it?" he asked.

"You know that team of researchers from McGill University in Montreal I've been working with over the Internet for the past two months?"

"The consulting job… something about harvesting a specific type of stem cells from human skin, right?"

"That's it. They've made a breakthrough last week and asked me to join them for the media presentation. I'd like to go…I'm flattered to think they consider me part of the team," she told him.

"That's fabulous. You should definitely go then. It'll be good publicity for the Andrassy Foundation."

She looked at him and gave him a sly smile, "What about you? Do you want to join me?"

He looked at her as though barely pondering the possibility, "Oh no…I think I'll pass. Max is almost due for Christmas break, and besides, do you have any idea how cold it gets in Montreal in December?"

She widened her eyes. "You don't mind me going alone?"

Dimitri pretended not to notice the disappointment she was trying to hide, "You keep telling me I fuss over you too much, and, you know, maybe you're right. You were always very independent. It's one of the things that made me fall in love with you. I don't want you to lose that on my account. Besides, it's only a couple of days right?"

"Uh…huh," she looked as if unsure of what to make of his nonchalance.

Dimitri couldn't blame her. He's been adamant about not letting her out of his sight since they'd returned to Wildwind. He didn't even like it when she went riding along, here was obliging her whim to take off to Canada on her own for a couple of days. .

"Take Trevor and Shawn with you, then I know you'll be fine," he said referring to two of his best guards.

"Alright. I will. " Dimitri saw that she tried to look as indifferent as he was and was amused that she wasn't entirely successful.

"Max is probably already waiting in the dining room, come on let's join him," Dimitri told her.

He watched her leave the room, smiling behind her back. 'Montreal,' he thought to himself, 'There couldn't _be _a more perfect opportunity.'

_Two days later_

_Montreal, PQ, Canada _

Dimitri entered the main convention hall on the third level of Montreal's brand new, glass encased, Palais des Congres, and the first thing he noticed was how full it was. There must have been a thousand chairs in the exhibition room, and next to the chairs, dozens and dozens of people took up whatever standing room there was left.

He inched his way towards the front of the room, so that he would have a clearer view of the stage. On it was a panel of eight scientists. Cameras and microphones, carrying logos of news stations from around the globe, surrounded them.

Dimitri watched with interest as one of the commentators proceeded to introduce the scientists, who then, one by one, launched into a short discourse, explaining the steps of their discovery. They spoke in what they considered layman's terms, much of which still went right over Dimitri's head.

With the exception of Alex and an elderly Chinese doctor, all members of the team were male. When Alex took over the microphone, Dimitri noticed a distinct change in the faces of the audience.

The fact that, unlike the others on stage, she didn't _look_ like a research scientist, made much of the audience put down their pens and notebooks. They watched and listened to her, rather than take notes. Unlike the others, whose speeches had been monotone and serious, Alex had a natural charm that transcended the seriousness of the subject matter.

She held the undivided attention of over a thousand individuals and she did it with ease. When she finished, they offered her a thunderous roar of applause and Dimitri beamed with pride, knowing that after this it wouldn't be long before she was ready to head the Andrassy Foundation.

It wasn't until nearly two hours later, when the press conference was over, that Dimitri finally managed to get close to her.

"Doctor Marick…ahem…excuse me!" he said loudly, making her turn around in surprise.

"Dimitri!" Her face broke into a giant smile when she saw him. "I thought Montreal was too cold for you!"

He grinned in return. "You're worth braving the cold for. Congratulations."

The lead scientist of the team looked on as she embraced Dimitri, "I expect you're going to join us for the question and answer session downstairs, Alexandra?" he asked her.

Dimitri cut in before Alex had a chance to answer, "I'm afraid not. She has prior commitments."

She was about to protest, but he whisked her away before giving her the chance.

_Outside_

"Are you crazy?" Alex questioned when they were outside.

"Absolutely."

Dimitri held his hand in the air and Alex watched in disbelief as a horse and carriage turned around and made their way towards them.

"Our ride is here," Dimitri explained as he helped her into the carriage.

"A _caleche_?" she asked in disbelief. Although Alex had seen dozens of horse and carriage riders since arriving in Montreal, _les caleches_, the locals called them, she didn't expect to find herself in one of them.

"What else? When in Rome…"

"Where are we going?"

"Dinner, of course."

"Hey…I just realized, if you're here, what about Max?"

"Not to worry," Dimitri wrapped a wool blanket around her. "He's gone to New York with Edmund and Brooke and their kids for a couple of days. He's probably riding a carriage through Central Park as we speak…"

"Well…" Alex chuckled. "If he's as crazy as his father, he might indeed be."

Alex watched the city's old building pass her by, as the horses made their way along the cobblestone streets of the Old Town and then along Rue St. Catherine, before finally stopping at a little brick house. It had an oval sign hanging outside its door that read, "Chez Pierre."

Dimitri shuttled her inside and Alex loved the restaurant at first sight. It was small and rustic, and the warmth of the flames coming from the stone fireplace filled the entire room.

"This is beautiful," she told Dimitri.

He smiled. "I know. I came here once, when I was on a business trip for Marick Diamonds, and I had to leave before I could finish my meal. Even though neither of us had ever been here before, there was something about this place that reminded me of you so strongly I couldn't stand to be here without you. I always told myself the only way I would ever come back here was with you at my side. As crazy as that must have sounded at the time."

His words gave her goose bumps and listening to them made Alex wonder whether she would ever fully comprehend the depth of his love for her. "But tell me then, when I told you I was going to Montreal…why didn't you just come with me from the start?"

He shrugged, "I wanted to surprise you. To do something special and unexpected for you. For us."

"Just being with you is more than I would have dared hope for only a few months ago."

A mustachioed waiter with a thick accent stopped at their table and Alex was taken aback as Dimitri ordered in fluent French.

"_Pour commencer, j'aimerais bien deux verres de caribou chaud_."

Alex looked at him in surprise, "You speak French? I didn't know."

"You think you're the only genius in the family?"

"Well, no…" she laughed. " Max is pretty bright too."

The waiter brought them what looked like two glasses of red wine. Alex was about to sip hers when Dimitri stopped her. "Do you know what this is?" he asked her.

"Wine?"

"Better. It's a local specialty called _caribou_. It's made with white wine, red wine, blueberry wine, whiskey, port and most importantly, a drop of reindeer blood."

Alex wasn't sure whether to believe him or not, "You're kidding, right?"

"Lumber jacks and fur traders used to drink it, as far back as five hundred years ago, to forget the harshness of Quebec winters. It's supposed to fortify your blood."

"Ah…there's a method to your madness," she stared at him with amusement. She knew he thought that telling what was in it would make her hesitant to try it, so of course she took a large sip to prove him wrong. "Excellent," she said, her gaze locked into his.

Following the _caribou,_ Dimitri decided to continue in the same vein, making their dinner a tribute to French Canadian cuisine. He ordered vegetable soup and _tourtiere_, a hearty, flavorful meat pie and topped it all off with _tarte au sucre_, maple sugar pie.

"This was incredible," Alex admitted afterwards.

"There's one more thing I want to show you, if you're up to it," Dimitri told her.

She nodded, "Of course."

Dimitri hailed a cab and asked the driver to take it up to the forested hill that made up a large part of the downtown core, Mont Royal.

"It's like Central Park," Dimitri explained to her, "But elevated and cleaner."

The taxi driver dropped them off where Dimitri asked him to and waited there. Dimitri took Alex by the hand and together they walked through a patch of pitch-black forest. The ice-cold snow crunched beneath their feet and they could see their breaths in the air. A little ways into the forest, Dimitri pulled out a scarf from the pocket of his coat and wrapped it around Alex's eyes, blindfolding her.

"Do you have a tree house hidden here?" she asked him jokingly, letting him lead her now. They kept walking through the forest, until finally Dimitri made her stop and placed her hands on a low stonewall.

He took off her blindfold, and Alex realized they were on a terrace, and suddenly, as if out of nowhere, she could see the entire city down below.

There were millions of lights as far as the eye could see. Hanging bridges that spanned the frozen St.Lawrence River, skyscrapers, gothic steeples, rounded domes and countless church spires. It was one of the most incredible sights she had ever seen.

Dimitri pointed towards the Notre Dame Cathedral; "Mark Twain once said you couldn't throw a stone in Montreal without breaking a church window."

"This is breathtaking. I've never seen anything like this. How did you know about this spot…?" Alex looked at him, in awe of what was in front of them.

Dimitri sat down on the stone wall, oblivious to the cold, "The reason I brought you here today is because you, you and Max, you're the most precious things in the world to me. When you opened your eyes and saw the sea of lights in front of you, you were overwhelmed by what you saw. That's how I feel, every time I look at you, and realize you're back in my life. Since you've come back I wanted to tell you that, but I wasn't sure how, so I wanted to show you instead."

His words, more than the view, overcame her emotions and she felt the tears well up in her eyes. "I can't believe you sometimes, Dimitri. Just when I think I know you better than I know myself, you do something like this that leaves me speechless."

He smiled, wiping away her tears with his hand, "This is supposed to make you happy, not sad."

She looked at him, her eyes wet and beautiful, "I don't think I've never been happier. Thank you for this. For everything."

They sat on the stone wall, overlooking the lights of Montreal, for a long, long time, before slowly making their way back to the waiting taxi.

_Epilogue_

_Near Cardiff, Wales _

Dr.Lewellyn drove towards the building where she was kept as soon he got the message from his assistant.

"There's been a change in her condition," his assistant had informed him.

"What kind of a change?" Lewellyn had asked.

"I think you'll need to see for yourself," was the reply.

Charlotte Devane had been in a coma for almost four months, and Lewellyn was certain she would remain that way for the rest of her short life. Until he received the message this morning.

He entered her room, unsure of what to expect, and when he did, his heart skipped a beat in shock.

Charlotte Devane was awake. Her eyes were wide open.

"Ms. Devane…?" he asked cautiously, wondering what level of coherence she would demonstrate.

"Lewellyn…I…need you to…tell me one…thing," she spoke slowly, and with great difficulty. Like a child learning to form words for the first time. Her speech was slurred and her words made a hissing sound. Nonetheless, she was obviously fully aware of her situation and her first question sounded more like a demand.

"Is my…daughter…dead?"

_The End_

VJ Rajadhan


End file.
